The Toxicity Of Trump And Ryan Is Already Impacting House Races

Yesterday NJ.com posted a piece about the bigly renewed interest of Democrats to run against GOP healthcare flip-flopper Leonard Lance. Lance backed TrumpCare in committee, was pummeled with harsh criticism in his central New Jersey district, and then did an about face and voted against it Thursday. Hopefully Ed Potosnak or Peter Jacobs will run, but already Scott Salmon, Lisa Mandelblatt and Linda Weber have filed to run. NJ.com mentioned that the Cook Political Report said “Lance is strongly favored to win re-election but it's not a safe seat.” According to this chart, Lance’s 7th district is the most vulnerable of 3 New Jersey’s GOP-held seats in play.

Right before the NJ.com piece was posted, Cook had re-rated 20 seats— all in the direction of Democrats, including Lance seat, which went from a “likely Republican” to a “lean Republican.”

Republicans' 217-213 passage of the American Health Care Act on Thursday guarantees Democrats will have at least one major on-the-record vote to exploit in the next elections. Although it's the first of potentially many explosive votes, House Republicans' willingness to spend political capital on a proposal that garnered the support of just 17 percent of the public in a March Quinnipiac poll is consistent with past scenarios that have generated a midterm wave.

Not only did dozens of Republicans in marginal districts just hitch their names to an unpopular piece of legislation, Democrats just received another valuable candidate recruitment tool. In fact, Democrats aren't so much recruiting candidates as they are overwhelmed by a deluge of eager newcomers, including doctors and veterans in traditionally red seats who have no political record for the GOP to attack— almost a mirror image of 2010.

…[F]or several dozen Republicans, adding support for the AHCA to their voting record is an unequivocal political risk. And, several of the 20 Republicans who voted against AHCA could end up being blamed anyway, much as 17 of the 30 Democrats who took a pass on the ACA and then ran for reelection ended up losing in 2010. For others, tough votes could make the prospect of retirement more appealing.

In light of the vote, they just shifted their ratings in 20 districts, “all reflecting enhanced opportunities for Democrats.” Steve Knight (CA-25), Jason Lewis (MN-02) and Mike Coffman (CO-06) fared worst, going from “lean Republican” to “toss up.” Lance plus 10 Republicans who voted for TrumpCare slipped from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican”— Martha McSally (AZ-02), Ed Royce (CA-39), Mimi Walters (CA-45), Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48), Peter Roskam (IL-06), David Young (IA-03), Kevin Yoder (KS-03), Erik Paulsen (MN-03), John Culberson (TX-07) and Pete Sessions (TX-32).

Another 6 Republican seats were downgraded from “Solid Republican” to “Likely Republican”— Rodney Davis (IL-13), Randy Hultgren (IL-14), Lynn Jenkins (KS-02), Mike Bishop (MI-08), Tom MacArthur (NJ-03) and Steve Chabot (OH-01). This might help with candidate recruitment in Chabot’s and MacArthgur’s seats.

The GOP has every reason to believe the DCCC will screw up candidate recruitment in most of these districts, as has become habitual for them for the past decade, searching first and foremost for worthless self-funders with Republican-lite messages.