MILWAUKEE — The tumult in the Democratic Party has Republican campaign chiefs dreaming big.
NRCC Chair Richard Hudson told us in an interview here that the GOP is starting to focus its attention, polling and potentially its cash on House seats that President Joe Biden won handily in 2020, even by double digits.
“If it’s a D+3, we already got you,” Hudson said, referring to seats that Biden won by three points when he took the White House. “We’re looking at D+11 and plus. … We’ve seen numbers all cycle that show we can win [in] a number of places like that.”
And NRSC Chair Steve Daines told us that having Donald Trump and JD Vance at the top of the GOP ticket “helps Republicans in our Senate battlegrounds,” while Democrats’ “worst nightmare” is Biden holding a rally in their state.
Let’s be clear — proclamations in July don’t necessarily dictate spending decisions in September, October or November. That’s true for both House and Senate races.
Plus, remember 2022’s ”red wave” and the 60 seats House Republicans were going to flip? They were dead wrong. And the last few cycles, Republicans lost winnable Senate races in part because of lackluster candidates.
But it’s not hard to see why Hudson and Daines are optimistic right now. The Democratic Party is warring over Biden’s candidacy. The president’s poll numbers are bad and getting worse in swing states. This has raised all sorts of flags about Democrats’ prospects in November. And it’s given Republicans hope that they can make some history on Election Day.
The House. Republicans enjoy a small majority that Democrats believe they can overturn in November, mainly because there are 17 House Republicans in districts Biden won in 2020.
But Hudson argues those Biden districts won’t be as winnable as Democrats think, labeling Biden “the most unpopular president in American history.”
“The American people have connected the dots that they are less prosperous and less safe because of his policies,” Hudson said of Biden.
Democrats insist that their candidates have unique profiles and can outrun the top of the ticket. There’s also the theory that voters may reward House Democrats to provide a check against unified GOP control of Washington, especially if it appears Republicans are running away with the Senate and White House.
Hudson said he’s not worried by either argument. The only thing that keeps Hudson up at night is the potential for Democrats to outspend the GOP.
“They’re running a campaign that says, ‘Yes, you’re less safe, less prosperous, but they’re scary,’” Hudson asserted of his Democratic counterparts. “So the only way that that could work is if they’re going to have money to make us look scarier.”
The battle for the Senate. Even before Democrats began publicly doubting Biden’s viability, Republicans were very optimistic about their chances to take back the Senate. They’re even more upbeat now.
West Virginia is already in the bag. Ohio and Montana are very winnable. Republicans see a target-rich map that includes battlegrounds like Nevada, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Then there’s the potential Biden drag that puts all these states in play.
Take it from California’s Democratic Senate candidate — and likely winner — Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). The New York Times reported that Schiff told donors Democrats would suffer serious losses across the board if Biden remains at the top of the ticket. We’ve reported that Biden has been told this directly by rank-and-file Democrats in private calls as well.
“Democrats are defending a lot, we’ve got a couple of seats we’re keeping an eye on on our side. But for the most part, it’s a fairly one-sided map, which is good for us,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune told us.
Despite Biden’s sagging popularity in the battleground states, Democratic Senate candidates have carved out their own brands distinct from Biden and the national party.
In battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, for instance, a Trump lead isn’t trickling down the ballot. A recent New York Times/Siena poll showed Trump leading Biden by three points in the Keystone State, but GOP Senate candidate Dave McCormick trailing Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) by 11 points. There have been similar polls in Nevada, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Another advantage Democrats have in these races is money. Democratic incumbents are far outraising challengers in a number of the key states. Wealthy GOP candidates like Eric Hovde in Wisconsin, Bernie Moreno in Ohio, Tim Sheehy in Montana and McCormick offset some of that Democratic advantage, as do super PACs.
Yet both sides have to make the same tough decisions about how to allocate their resources. Republicans have put Maryland on the map as well, forcing Democrats to spend there.
“The challenge we have right now in a lot of these races is just financing… and ensuring that we’re able to get that message out, because the map is so big and spread out this year,” Thune said. “[Democrats] have the same sort of allocation of resources issue that we do…. We’re at a financial disadvantage in our dollars. But at the end of the day, it’s not money alone that wins races.”
— Jake Sherman, Andrew Desiderio and Max Cohen
