The NRCC made a splash earlier today by releasing a target list of 70 Dem-held House districts that they hope to put into play next year. Let’s take a closer look at all 70 — including their PVIs, the closeness of each race in 2008, and whether or not the GOP has recruited a “legitimate” challenger this time (this is a bit of a subjective assessment, but we’ll get to that later):
| District | Incumbent | PVI | 2008 Margin | Legit Challenger? | District | Incumbent | PVI | 2008 Margin | Legit Challenger? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AL-02 | Bright | R+16 | 1% | Y | NM-01 | Heinrich | D+5 | 12% | Y | |
| AL-05 | Griffith | R+12 | 4% | Y | NM-02 | Teague | R+6 | 12% | Y | |
| AR-01 | Berry | R+8 | 100% | N | NV-03 | Titus | D+2 | 5% | N | |
| AR-02 | Snyder | R+5 | 53% | N | NY-01 | Bishop | R+0 | 16% | N | |
| AR-04 | Ross | R+7 | 72% | N | NY-13 | McMahon | R+4 | 28% | N | |
| AZ-01 | Kirkpatrick | R+6 | 17% | N | NY-19 | Hall | R+3 | 18% | Y | |
| AZ-05 | Mitchell | R+5 | 9% | Y | NY-20 | Murphy | R+2 | 24% | N | |
| CA-11 | McNerney | R+1 | 10% | Y | NY-24 | Arcuri | R+2 | 4% | N | |
| CA-47 | Sanchez | D+4 | 44% | Y | NY-25 | Maffei | D+3 | 13% | N | |
| CO-04 | Markey | R+6 | 12% | Y | NY-29 | Massa | R+5 | 2% | Y | |
| CT-04 | Himes | D+5 | 4% | N | OH-01 | Driehaus | D+1 | 5% | Y | |
| FL-08 | Grayson | R+2 | 4% | N | OH-15 | Kilroy | D+1 | 1% | Y | |
| FL-22 | Klein | D+1 | 10% | Y | OH-16 | Boccieri | R+4 | 10% | N | |
| FL-24 | Kosmas | R+4 | 16% | Y | OH-18 | Space | R+7 | 20% | N | |
| GA-12 | Barrow | D+1 | 32% | Y | OK-02 | Boren | R+14 | 41% | N | |
| HI-01 | (Open) | D+11 | 58% | Y | OR-01 | Wu | D+8 | 54% | N | |
| IA-03 | Boswell | D+1 | 14% | N | OR-04 | DeFazio | D+2 | 69% | Y | |
| ID-01 | Minnick | R+18 | 1% | Y | OR-05 | Schrader | D+1 | 16% | N | |
| IL-11 | Halvorson | R+1 | 24% | Y | PA-03 | Dahlkemper | R+3 | 2% | N | |
| IL-14 | Foster | R+1 | 15% | Y | PA-04 | Altmire | R+6 | 12% | N | |
| IN-08 | Ellsworth | R+8 | 30% | N | PA-07 | (Open) | D+3 | 20% | N | |
| IN-09 | Hill | R+6 | 20% | N | PA-10 | Carney | R+8 | 12% | N | |
| KS-03 | Moore | R+3 | 16% | N | PA-11 | Kanjorski | D+4 | 3% | N | |
| KY-06 | Chandler | R+9 | 30% | N | PA-12 | Murtha | R+1 | 16% | N | |
| LA-03 | Melancon | R+12 | 100% | Y | SD-AL | Herseth | R+9 | 35% | N | |
| MD-01 | Kratovil | R+13 | 1% | Y | TX-17 | Edwards | R+20 | 7% | N | |
| MI-07 | Schauer | R+2 | 2% | Y | UT-02 | Matheson | R+15 | 28% | N | |
| MI-09 | Peters | D+2 | 9% | Y | VA-02 | Nye | R+5 | 5% | N | |
| MO-04 | Skelton | R+14 | 32% | N | VA-05 | Perriello | R+5 | <1% | N | |
| MS-01 | Childers | R+14 | 10% | Y | VA-09 | Boucher | R+11 | 100% | N | |
| NC-08 | Kissell | R+2 | 10% | N | VA-11 | Connolly | D+2 | 12% | Y | |
| ND-AL | Pomeroy | R+10 | 24% | N | WI-03 | Kind | D+4 | 29% | Y | |
| NH-01 | Shea-Porter | R+0 | 6% | Y | WI-07 | Obey | D+3 | 22% | N | |
| NH-02 | (Open) | D+3 | 15% | N | WI-08 | Kagen | R+2 | 8% | N | |
| NJ-03 | Adler | R+1 | 4% | N | WV-01 | Mollohan | R+9 | 100% | N |
That’s a big fat, honkin’ list of incumbents, including several that haven’t seen a competitive race in years — or ever (Boren, Skelton, the Arkansas delegation, Matheson, Pomeroy, Kind, and Boucher, to name just a few). Many of these races probably won’t produce competitive contests, but there’s absolutely no downside for the NRCC to be putting these incumbents on notice — not only will the targets being painted on these members’ backs have the potential to affect legislative votes, it helps to promote the idea that the NRCC is preparing for a big wave in their favor in 2010. (One thing’s for sure, if we have to worry about David Effin’ Wu next year, we’ll be preparing for life in the minority again.)
Now, what makes a challenger “legitimate”, you ask? That’s a good question. I define legitimacy as something that must be earned — whether it’s through an electoral track record or a demonstrated ability to fundraise (or self-fund), or some combination of both. In other words, just because the NRCC has met with some random businessman and asked him to challenge his local congressman, it doesn’t mean that the challenger has established himself as legitimate until he’s coughed up a quarterly filing with the FEC. Let me put it this way: for every Richard Hanna (the guy who nearly beat Mike Arcuri last year), there are a dozen or more Luke Pucketts or Carl Mumpowers. It’s just a lot harder at this point in the game to separate the wheat from the chaff, so our methodology is not to list a challenger without a record of electoral success as “legitimate” until they have demonstrated their ability to raise the dough. (And no, raising phat loads of cash through BMW Direct, like Bill Russell does in PA-12 does not count as a legitimate means of fundraising in our book.) The NRCC would no doubt disagree pretty strongly with my chart in some places, but I already feel that I’m being overly generous by granting OR-04 candidate Sid Leiken, who has had some pretty severe fundraising difficulties, “legit” status.
So, many of these districts marked with an “N” have challengers that have yet to prove the merit and mettle of their respective candidacies. There’s no doubt that many of these Ns will turn into Ys by the time the year’s over, but the GOP still has a lot of work to do. The GOP also has a stock of credible candidates considering bids in many of these “unchallenged” districts (FL-08, LA-03, and VA-05, in particular), so some of these holes will be easier to fill than others.
Also interesting is who is not listed on such an expansive list as this — guys whom the NRCC spent a lot of time targeting last cycle like Joe Donnelly (IN-02), Jim Marshall (GA-08) and Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23) stand out as conspicuous absences, especially considering the number of extreme longshots thrown into the mix.
Know alot more than I do…but the list is still quite puzzling. I just dont understand how names like Obey, Skelton and Herseth-Sandlin (unless Rounds runs but if he didnt even run for Senate….) can be on there but not names like James said.
Seems to be targeting people who they’re quite unlikely to pick off, but might be able push into retirement if it’s clear that the NRCC is going to stop overlooking them from now on. Skeleton, Bouchar, Mollohan, and the Arkansas trio seem the most obvious targets of that approach.
But seriously, David Wu? I know Oregon has a much higher Republican basement than most people give it credit for, but get real, Repubs.
if they get a nationally appealing message. I do expect them to pick up some seats, but running as the white southern party isn’t going to get them a majority again.
http://www.dailycomet.com/arti…
Scott Angelle (D) to run as Republican?
And Nickie Monica WILL run
Just based on 2008, at least a dozen slitghtly vulnerable incumbents are not on the list. Each scored under 60%and a few seem obvious.
Chellie Pingree represents a Democratic district (ME-1) but won by an unimpressive 55-45 in an open seat race. This is probably the last shot Republicans have at her until retirement. Chellie’s daughter is IIRC President of the Maine state senate. Could be a family dynasty in the making.
Chris Murphy in CT-5 won by a 59-39 margin. Not likely.
Patrick Murphy in PA-8 won by a lackluster 57-42 and has obvious statewide or national ambitions. This is one of the more surprising omissions. On a list this large, he should be listed.
Dennis Kucinich from OH-10 is not going to be ousted by a Republican despite a 57-39 margin. He’s the kind of Democrat Republicans like to make a run at, though.
Jim Marshall (see above)
John Yarmuth KY-3 obviously Chandler was listed for the PVI but Yarmuth was 59-41 in his second match against Anne Northrup.
Lincoln Davis (TN-4) won 59-38 against a well funded opponent.
Ciro Rodriguez (see above)
Solomon Ortiz, TX-27 (58-39)
Gabrielle Griffiths, AZ-8 (55-43). Tim Bee took a major shot in 2008 and lost.
Ben Ray Lujan (NM-3, 57-30) Good omission.
Another reason for some of the names on this list is to try and encourage strong Republicans to run as well, signaling they may get national support in 2010 if they do.
they pour money into a long of these rediculous long shot target and thus end of up putting less money into other races that they have a chance to win
some of these targets seem a bit rediculous considering they never had a chance at them in good years for republicans.
The NRCC didn’t make all that much of an effort against Donnelly in 2008; they either couldn’t or wouldn’t prop Puckett up.
If they did, boy did it not show.
Strike Ross, Himes, Ellsworth, Chandler, Peters, Skelton, Pomeroy, Mollohan, Obey, Kind, Boucher, Matheson, Herseth, Schrader, DeFazio, Wu, Boren, Maffei, McMahon and Heinrich. You can make a case for the rest but most only at a stretch. The 1994-redux worry-warts are forgetting most of those House loses were open seats and largely in the South. Not the case this time. Best case scenario I see is maybe them netting twenty but still high single digits most likely.
They are targeting a district that gave a liberal Democrat (Abercrombie) easy victories for years? Abercrombie, per VoteView was the 45th most liberal person in the 110th House; in 2008, he got 77% of the vote.
Huh?
Definitely does not have a serious opponent yet.
With all of the confusion upthread about why the NRSC would target Wu, it could have something to do with the fact that, according to Congress.org’s 2008 power rankings, Wu was 325/435, the least powerful member of the Oregon delegation (yes, even Greg Walden is more powerful, at 283, and he’s not even from the majority party), and completely undistinguished in the decade he’s been in Congress. From that same table, 33 Republicans elected in Wu’s 1998 class or before, including Peter Roskam, were more powerful than he was in 2008, while only one non-indicted Democrat (Vic Snyder of AR-02) elected on or before 1998 was less powerful.
Wu could be vulnerable to an even competently organized
challenge of the “pretend moderate” (Smith, Walden) variety. The problem for the NRCC is that OR-01 Republicans are a disorganized mess of clueless nouveau riche and incompetent whackjobs, none of whom have the base or organization to win. Goli Ameri back in 2004 was the best they’ve done to date, and Wu still pasted her by 58-38 in an otherwise fairly Republican year.
With all that said, the general NRCC strategy does seem to be “swing a baseball bat in the dark and try to break something”. Compared to throwing a lot of money into districts like IN-02 that the GOP won’t ever get back except in another 1994 scenario, it’s probably just as effective to start throwing spitballs at some of the rustier incumbents and see if they crack. There’s no way they get credible challengers for more than a couple of these seats, but being in the “discovery” phase, this is exactly the point. Once it gets down to the semifinals, this list will be a lot shorter and make a lot more sense. Unless they screw it up somehow, which with any Republican campaign committee of late is a distinct possibility.
Didn’t we get to like 420+ D candidates for house seats last year? I’m not surprised at some of the challenges listed, as it seems to be their pared down version of our house “50 state” strategy.