Worst Electoral Targeting Award For 2014 Goes To... Steve Israel

Texans Mac Thornberry (Amarillo), Mike Conaway (Midland/Odessa) and Kevin Brady (the north Houston 'burbs of Montgomery County) don't have to worry about Democrats; their districts barely have any. In 2012, Thornberry didn't have a Democratic opponent while Conaway beat his with 79% and Brady beat his with 77%. These are red hellholes that national Democrats don't even think about. All three have PVIs hovering around R+30. Obama only got 19% of the vote against Romney in Thornberry's district… and 20% in Conaway's and 22% in Brady's. Democrats have seats that are as Blue as these 3 are red. In New York City, for example, Jose Serrano (Bronx), Charlie Rangel (Harlem), and Gregory Meeks (Queens' Jamaica and Rockaway) are all in districts with PVIs between D+35 and D+43. Romney took 3% ofd the vote in Serrano's district, 5% in Rangel's and broken into double digits (10%) in Meeks'. Serrano, a stalwart progressive was reelected with 97%. Ethically-challenged Rangel was reelected with 91% (after scraping by in a brutal 3-way primary with only 44%) and Meeks, the worst kind of New Dem corporate whore, was reelected last cycle with 90% of the vote. the NRCC doesn't have any of these districts on its radar-- nor any of the 58 districts with PVIs of D+20 or above. There are 28 Republican districts with PVIs of R+20 or above and not even an idiot like Steve Israel wastes money contesting any of them.

Most contests are in districts with PVIs that are even or that are between R+4 and D+4. There are 78 of them. These are the 16 Democrats in the districts with PVIs between R+4 and even:

• Ann Kirkpatrick (New Dem-AZ)- R+4
• Ron Barber (Blue Dog-AZ)- R+3
• Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX)- R+3
• Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL)- R+3
• Tim Bishop (D-NY)- R+2
• Tim Walz (D-MN)- R+2
• Raul Ruiz (D-CA)- R+1
• Joe Garcia (New Dem-FL)- R+1
• Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)- R+1
• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)- R+1
• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)- even
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)- even
• Steve Israel ("ex"-Blue Dog-NY)- even
• Bill Owens (New Dem-NY)- even (retiring)
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)- even
• Bill Enyart (D-IL)- even

And these are the 7 Republicans in the districts with PVIs between D+4 and even:

• David Valadao (R-CA)- D+2
• Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ)- D+1
• Chris Gibson (R-NY)- D+1
• Mike Coffman (R-CO)- D+1
• Rodney Davis (R-IL)- even
• Tom Latham (R-IA)- even (retiring
• Joe Heck (R-NV)- even

Obviously, the Republicans have a lot more targets and the Democrats have far fewer. Both party committees are working strenuously to protect their incumbents. But those aren't the seats I want to look at today. Instead, lets look at the seats among this cohort of 78 that aren't being challenged by the two committees. In some cases there are grassroots candidates who aren't being aided by the DCCC or the NRCC and there are a few races with no candidates at all, which represents pure malfeasance on the part of the committees. First, the seats in our cohort of 78 "swing districts" with no major party challenger at all:

• CA-25- open- R+3
• PA-15- Charlie Dent (R)- R+2
• NY-22- Richard Hanna (R)- R+2
• FL-27- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R)- R+2
• FL-13- David Jolly ®- R+1

Every Republican voter will find a candidate with an "R" next to his or her name in November. Five Democrats won't. And, remember, these are from the winnable districts, not the prohibitively partisan ones. But that barely begins to tell the story. This next list is the districts where the two committees have no candidate and aren't supporting a local candidate. In many cases, the DCCC and the NRCC are telling donors to not contribute to the local candidates are paint those races as "a waste of time" and "hopeless," although these are virtually the only winnable seats that the 2 Beltway committees aren't involved with. The 16 italicized named represent NRCC malfeasance. All the rest (18) represent DCCC malfeasance.

• MI-03- Justin Amash- R+4
• FL-07- John Mica- R+4
• IL-16- Adam Kinzinger- R+4
• CA-49- Darrell Issa- R+4
• PA-16- Joe Pitts- R+4
• NJ-05- Scott Garrett- R+4
• IL-06- Peter Roskam- R+4
• VA-04- Randy Forbes- R+4
• OH-10- Michael Turner- R+3
• FL-18- Patrick Murphy- R+3
• WI-01- Paul Ryan- R+3
• WA-03- Jaime Herrera Beutler- R+2
• PA-07- Patrick Meehan- R+2
• MN-03- Erik Paulsen- R+2
• WI-07- Sean Duffy- R+2
• WI-08- Reid Ribble- R+2
• WA-08- Dave Reichert- R+1
• MI-06- Fred Upton- R+1
• MN-01- Tim Walz- R+1
• NY-02- Peter King- R+1
• AZ-09- Kyrsten Sinema- R+1
• NY-03- Steve Israel- even
• NY-18- Sean Patrick Maloney- even
• OR-05- Kurt Schrader- even
• OR-04- Peter DeFazio- D+2
• CT-05- Elizabeth Esty- D+3
• FL-22- Lois Frankel- D+3
• NY-04- Carolyn McCarthy (open)- D+3
• NV-04- Steven Hosford- D+4
• MD-06- John Delaney- D+4
• KY-03- John Yarmuth- D+4
• CA-24- Lois Capps- D+4
• PA-17- Matt Cartwright- D+4
• IA-02- Dave Loebsack- D+4

This week, NRCC announced reserving $18 million worth of airtime to attack the following 16 Democratic incumbents:

• Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-01)
• Ron Barber (AZ-02)
• Ami Bera (CA-07)
• Raul Ruiz (CA-36)
• Scott Peters (CA-52)
• Joe Garcia (FL-26)
• John Barrow (GA-12)
• Brad Schneider (IL-10)
• William Enyart (IL-12)
• Collin Peterson (MN-07)
• Rick Nolan (MN-08)
• Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01)
• Ann Kuster (NH-02)
• John Tierney (MA-06)
• Tim Bishop (NY-01)
• Nick Rahall (WV-03)

And they have named 21 Young Guns, the equivalent of the DCCC's Red-to-Blue:

• Martha McSally vs Ron Barber (AZ-02)- R+3
• Don Logue vs John Garamendi (CA-03)- D+3
• Doug Ose vs Ami Bera (CA-07)- even
• Jeff Gorell vs Julia Brownley (CA-26)- D+4
• Brian Nestande vs Raul Ruiz (CA-36)- R+1
• Carl DeMaio vs Scott Peters (CA-52)- D+2
• Carlos Curbelo vs Joe Garcia (FL-26)- R+1
• Rick Allen vs John Barrow (GA-12)- R+9
• Bob Dold vs Brad Schneider (IL-10)- D+8
• Darlene Senger vs Bill Foster (IL-11)- D+8
• Mike Bost vs Bill Enyart (IL-12)- even
• Bobby Schilling vs Cheri Bustos (IL-17)- D+7
• Richard Tisei vs John Tierney (MA-06)- D+4
• Torrey Westrom vs Collin Peterson (MN-07)- R+6
• Stewart Mills vs Rick Nolan (NM-08)- D+1
• Tom McArthur vs Aimee Belgard (NJ-03)- R+1
• Ryan Costello vs Manan Trivedi (PA-06)- R+2
• Barbara Comstock vs John Foust (VA-10)- R+2
• Pedro Celis vs Suzan DelBene (WA-01)- D+4
• Alex Mooney vs Nick Casey (WV-02)- R+11
• Evan Jenkins vs Nick Rahall (WV-03)- R+14

What kind of money are we talking about? The Illinois races are typical. The DCCC has reserved broadcast and cable TV time in IL-10 to defend Brad Schneider and the NRSC has reserved an identical amount for former Congressman Bob Dold in the district. However, that's the only district where the GOP has kept up. In IL-12 the DCCCC has reserved two tranches of $940,000 each ($1,980,000) to defend weak incumbent Bill Enyart, one from September 12 through September 29 and another from October 21 through election day. The NRCC has only come up with $720,000 to boost opponent Mike Bost. Similar story in IL-13, where the DCCC is running Ann Callis against GOP incumbent Rodney Davis. They're reserved $940,000 worth of time in the St. Louis market and $670,000 in the Champaign market-- a total of $1,610,000. The NRCC has only managed to reserve $720,000 to defend Davis. The NRCC doesn't real real paths for victory for either Schilling against Bustos or Senger against Foster and hasn't reserved any air time in either district.

The worst mistakes Israel has made this quarter in terms of targeting-- mistakes that doom the Democrats to minority status-- were to let CA-25 slip away and to refuse to back progressives running against Dennis Ross (FL-15), Fred Upton (MI-06), Dave Reichert (WA-08), Sean Duffy (WI-07), and Paul Ryan (WI-01). This, plus the 4 blue-leaning districts he didn't recruit any candidates in and the dozen-plus vulnerable GOP-held seats where he's refusing to help local Democratic candidates, should be enough for Pelosi to have fired him. But she didn't. Maybe she just doesn't want to be Speaker again-- and she won't be-- but what about the country? How can she, in good conscience, consign the country to another 2 years of a Republican House?