It's Strange That None Of The Congressional Handicappers Factor In Candidate Quality

2024 Is A Very Bad Year For Candidate Quality

First some horserace stats: Nate Silver’s latest polling average shows Kamala ahead 49.2% to 45.7%— so a lede of 3.5%, about the same as the lede in The Economist’s polling average, 48.4% to 45.2%. Looks like the only voters buying Trump’s attempt to define Kamala as a Bolshevik, Marxist Communist fascist isn’t making an impression on anyone other than hardcore MAGAts. The latest national USA Today poll, shows Kamala continuing to build momentum as Trump circles the electoral toilet bowl. She’s ahead by 5 points right now— 48-43%. “The boost for Democrats has extended down the ballot,” reported Susan Page. “In June, registered voters said they supported their local Republican congressional candidate over the Democratic one by a narrow 47%-45%. Now likely voters support the Democratic candidate over the Republican by 48%-43%, still a small margin but a swing of seven points.”

As Chris Hayes noted Monday, the metric working best for Democrats is enthusiasm. 78% of Dems but just 64% of Republicans say they are more enthusiastic about voting than usual. Hayes blames Trump’s low-energy campaign and voters’ dislike of the weirdo running mate. “Given how scattered and unhinged this latest Trump campaign has been,” he wrote, “perhaps it should come as little surprise that some folks are openly asking if he might drag the whole Republican Party down with him. On Wednesday, NewsNation’s Leland Vittert asked Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, rather bluntly, if Trump was becoming a drag on the GOP. Cruz told the anchor he didn’t believe the former president was jeopardizing Republicans on the state level but stressed, ‘It’s incumbent on the Trump campaign to focus on the issues, on how people’s lives are worse off under Kamala Harris than they were under Donald Trump.’ Well, if Republicans are relying on Trump to stay on message to save their fortunes in November… it might be time to look for a new strategy.”

The following day, Ally Mutnick reported that congressional Republicans are starting to panic… in the way a party starts to freak out when they see a wave forming against them. Mutnick pointed out the “massive money hole.” The heads of the NRSC and the NRCC are both whining they’re tens of millions down from being able to compete with the Democrats.

“Republicans were already worried about a glaring financial gap even before Kamala Harris’ rise,” reported Mutnick. “Now, with the election just two months away, they found themselves in an even more dire position: Democrats have seen a flood of enthusiasm in recent weeks, they’re far outspending Republicans on air and their donors are more energized than ever— with campaign finance data showing a surge in grassroots fundraising in late July after President Joe Biden dropped out. Panic is starting to set in… They know they won’t be able to match Democrats’ dollar-for-dollar, but they need to narrow the deficit to stay in the game. But Democrats are reaching new heights, pounding the airwaves with multimillion-dollar ad blitzes while their GOP opponents are still scrambling for funds. In some key Senate battlegrounds, Democrats are so flush with cash that they are outspending Republicans by tens of millions on the air. That’s forced the GOP to lean heavily on super PACs, which can raise unlimited amounts of money but must pay higher rates for the same ad slots. Time’s running out: The next few weeks of fundraising will determine whether Senate Republicans can seriously contest Democratic-held seats in places beyond the red states of Montana and Ohio— and just how much House Republicans can go on offense while still protecting the slew of incumbents they have in blue districts. They need the funds as soon as possible to communicate during early voting and make sure Democrats aren’t totally unchallenged on the air in the final weeks.”

Mutnick identifies 3 vulnerable Republicans in trouble because of the disparity: Mike Garcia (R-CA), Marc Molinaro (R-NY) and Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ). All three have better-than-average Democratic opponents, George Whitesides, Josh Riley and Kirsten Engel— in a year when, nationally, candidate quality is working against Democrats, who have their worst roster of challengers in 2 decades. 

The Cook view of competitive House races

Cook’s analysis shows Brandon Williams (R-NY) as the most vulnerable incumbent of either party. But their analysis doesn’t put candidate quality into the equation— and even though Williams ranks really low oin that metric himself, his opponent, John Mannion, is a conservative, GOP-lite state Senator with a terrible record, a toxic work environment in his office and the kind of sexist harassment scandal that eventually catches up to most conservatives, regardless of party. Former Mannion staffers wrote in a letter of complaint that “We have come together now to write this letter because there is still time to avoid elevating yet another abuser to high office.”

Cook’s competitive races list puts Williams at the bottom but there are 4 other Republican incumbents in trouble— all with weak challengers, uninspiring garden variety Democratic hack Lauren Gillen who is challenging Anthony D’Esposito again; pro-genocide, former progressive-turned-anti-progressive Mondaire Jones taking on Mike Lawler; Josh Riley— the only half-way decent candidate in the running in NY, challenging Marc Molinaro again; and arguably the Democrats’ worst candidate in America, John Avlon, running against Nick LaLota in Suffolk County.

Aside from a possible wave and both a fundraising advantage and partisan registration advantage in many of the districts, the only thing keeping them competitive is how the GOP has managed to find candidates with as dismally low candidate quality as the Democrats have! Kamala is going to have to generate a big wave and demonstrate strong coattails even in her native California to oust GOP incumbents in blue districts— like David Valadao (D+5), John Duarte (D+4) and Michelle Steel (D+2)— because of abysmally low candidate quality.  

In case you’re wondering if there are any high candidate quality Democrats running anywhere, there’s one in New Jersey— Sue Altman, running against a defective GOP incumbent, Tom Kean Jr [contribute here] and… the Democrats running against Ciscomani (AZ), Molinaro (NY), De La Cruz (TX) and Fitzpatrick (PA) aren’t bad. As for Democratic incumbents looked at as vulnerable, most are just terrible, but there good ones are Matt Cartwright (PA) Chris Deluzio (PA), Marcy Kaptur (OH), Val Hoyle (OR), Emilia Sykes (OH) and Andy Levin (CA). Some (Blue Dogs like Jared Golden, Don Davis and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez) are— other than on Choice— as bad as Republicans… and Henry Cuellar doesn’t even get the Choice exception.