The Democratic Party Is So Awful... But They're So Lucky Their Adversaries Are So Much Worse

Republican operatives aren't going to stop everything and fret over why they got their asses kicked in Ohio Tuesday. That's the same day we looked at the grade school-level targeting memo that the DCCC planted with Jennifer Rubin. Compare it to the far more politically-sophisticated targeting memo from McCarthy’s SuperPAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF). The audience wasn’t Jennifer Rubin; it was deep-pocketed GOP fat cats who McCarthy wants to write checks that will allow him to spend $100 million in swing districts that Biden won and that have incumbents the DCCC is targeting. McCarthy is calling it the Blue State Project. The strategy is to blame Democratic leaders— especially the widely unpopular New York governor, Kathy Hochul— for problems like the cost of living and crime rates and connect that to congressional candidates.

CNBC reported “There are currently six Republicans who represent Biden-won districts in New York, and another five in California. To hold these seats in deep blue states will require that groups like CLF buy airtime for ads in some of the most expensive media markets in the country, [CLF president Dan] Conston notes. The Cook Political Report’s list of toss-up House seats— the most competitive seats in the country— currently includes 13 Republican seats, four of them in New York and three in California. Democrats, by contrast, hold 10 toss up seats, but none of them are in traditional Republican strongholds. The Congressional Leadership Fund spokeswoman explained that the PAC’s planned efforts in blue states are going beyond New York and California, including targeting districts in New Jersey, Washington and Oregon.”

They have around $17 million cash on hand and need $83 million more. A descendant of a notorious robber baron, Timothy Mellon, gave $5 million and Richard Duchossois, who died last year, gave $2 million. The memo noted that “In the House, our offensive and defensive maps are dramatically different and are requiring bifurcated approaches. Defense will come down to swing districts in blue states. That’s why we’re launching the Blue State Project. We have an opportunity to continue to capture the frustration of middle of the road voters in liberal states crying out for common sense. It is no accident that we’ve had our biggest gains in NY and CA for four straight years, but it also means we have extraordinarily expensive fights ahead with 11 targeted incumbents in the NYC and LA media markets alone.”

He’s talking about protecting these 11 seats in California and New York:

• CA-13- John Duarte, where Biden won by 10.9 points

• CA-22- David Valadao, where Biden won by 13.0 points

• CA-27- Mike Garcia, where Biden won by 12.4 points

• CA-40- Young Kim, where Biden won by 1.9 point

• CA-45- Michelle Steel, where Biden won by 6.1 points

• NY-01- Nick LaLota, where Biden won by 0.2 point

• NY-03- [George Santos, who won’t be running], where Biden won by 8.2 points

• NY-04- Anthony D’Esposito, where Biden won by 14.6 points

• NY-17- Mike Lawler, where Biden won by 10.1 points

• NY-19- Marc Molinaro, where Biden won by 4.6 points

• NY-22- Brandon Williams, where Biden won by 7.4 points

“On offense,” they wrote,”where we present credible alternatives, we excel. Our top pickup chances fall into four groups: 1) Emerging open seats; 2) Trump-won seats; 3) Districts where we faced historic top-of-ticket underperformance in ‘22; 4) Narrowly losing ‘22 nominees returning in ‘24. A few of the Trump-seat Democrats skated by without any scrutiny last cycle because of their opponents. In ‘24, they are far more vulnerable.”

Fortunately for Democrats, the CLF has a very basic misunderstanding of how Democrats win races and that they keep insisting that solid progressives are too far left and that Democratic recruiting is weak. Although there are some examples of weak recruits— Adam Gray (CA-13) and Rudy Salas (CA-22)— both are as far right as a Democrat can be without joining the GOP. And voters in their districts know. Both were leaders of the right-of-center, anti-progressive "Mod Squad" in the state legislature which the Republicans could make hay out of but never will. Other candidates they criticize are spectacular, like Mondaire Jones (NY-17) and Jamie McLeod-Skinner in Oregon. The GOP’s delusions will help some Democratic candidates to do better in their races. CLF told their donors the Democrats “are stuck in a malaise of weak candidates, too-liberal-to-win challengers, and outright holes in most of their top seats.” They also claim Sue Altman (NJ-07) is “too liberal,” which is more delusion… She’s a solid mainstream progressive Democrat. And she can beat Trump ass-kisser Tom Kean.

The CLF did boast that “Democrats have their worst retreads against David Valadao and John Duarte— two of the bluest districts Republicans hold” and noted that Democrats don’t have consensus candidates against Michelle Steel (CA-45…D+2), Young Kim (CA-40…R+2), Nick LaLota (NY-01…R+3), Jen Kiggans (VA-02…R+2), and Zach Nunn (IA-03… R+3) nor for MI-07 (an R+2 district being abandoned by Elissa Slotkin)

House Republicans who lost last cycle were outspent on average by $3 million candidate to candidate, which led to an important evolution. The Speaker and NRCC are prioritizing geing more dollars to top-tier members early, and the results are clearly paying off: Targeted GOP incumbents are raising 56% more than targeted DEM incumbents. In total, DCCC frontliners have only $22 million cash on hand, while NRCC patriots have $31 million, about a $9 million difference

This is a quantum change from where candidate money was for nearly a decade. Why does it maer? It ensures our Members are able to define themselves, while allowing CLF to focus on what we do best: persuasively defining opponents.

…Republicans hold the majority today because we expanded and defined the map on our terms, stretching Democrats too thin to compete. Of the closest 31 House races, Democrats only spent in 24. In ‘24, we have serious pickup opportunities. A sampling:

● Open Seats— The retirements of Slotkin (MI-07) & Spanberger (VA-07) present top chances. Vet Tom Barre will be the nominee in MI-07, and another star recruit in VA-07 may jump in soon.

● Trump-won Seats— Marcy Kaptur (OH-09: Trump +3) is on retirement watch now that Craig Reidel raised over $550,000 in Q2. In other key races, serious challengers are in or considering runs against Democrats who received no real scrutiny last cycle, including Mary Peltola (AK-AL: Trump +10) and Marie Gleusenkamp Perez (WA-03: Trump +4).

● ‘24 Beer than ‘22: Susan Wild (PA-07: Biden +1) and Ma Cartwright (PA-08: Trump +3) only won because of top-of-ticket drag from Doug Mastriano. Their images are hobbled, and they’re strapped for cash after last cycle. They will face serious challenges.

● One of the Sleeper Races: Kevin Lincoln, the popular African American nonpartisan mayor of Stockton, CA has filed against Josh Harder (CA-09) in a minority district trending our way.

In 2024, the House will be won or lost in blue states. Over a third of the competitive House map, nearly three-quarters of the most competitive defensive seats, will be in safe blue states. Swing voters in blue states are different from swing voters in swing states. We will focus on the failures of far-left governance in these states, reaching swing voters fed up with soaring costs and out-of-control crime. As these blue states exist in a vacuum outside of the competitive presidential and senate races, the Republican party infrastructure won’t be present in the same way, meaning we must create our own infrastructure tailored around:

● Identifying ticket spliers and swing universes through modeling projects.

● Building field and individual voter contact programs (mail, text, phone).

● Investing in early voting and turnout efforts prior to Election Day (ballot chase programs).

Since they brought up Marcy Kaptur just as the Ohio results were coming, I thought I’d look at how the 8 counties in OH-09 went last night, starting with Lucas County, which accounts for most of the voters in the district. These are the counties in order of voters and how well NO on 1 did Tuesday night:

• Lucas- 67%

• Erie- 57%

• Wood- 56%

• Sandusky- 44%

• Ottawa- 51%

• Fulton- 37%

• Defiance- 39%

• Williams- 37%

This doesn’t look like Republicans are poised to do any better than they did in 2022, when crackpot MAGAt J.R. Majewski took just 43.4% of the vote. The Republicans are underperforming this year. Their memo doesn't show that they even grok that let alone have figured out a way to turn it around.