Trump Is Destroying Dozens Of Republican Incumbents' Ability To Win This Cycle

Air Force One by Nancy Ohanian

Incumbents usually win reelection. It's rare when they don't. Last cycle showed what happens to incumbents when they are viewed by their constituents as enablers of a disliked president. And if Trump was disliked by voters in 2018, he is positively loathed by voters this year. Last year Republicans lost 42 seats, including 30 incumbents. The others had retired but 30 stood and fought for their lives and lost, some by huge margins in red districts. (13 GOP-held seats in which the incumbents retired were lost to Democrats-- marked in red.) This is who lost and many of them were to weak, meaningless DCCC candidates.

• AZ-02 Martha McSally (R+2)
• CA-10 Jeff Denham (even)
• CA-21 David Valadao (D+5)
• CA-25 Steve Knight (even)
• CA-39 Ed Royce (even)
• CA-45 Mimi Waters (R+3)
• CA-48 Dana Rohrabacher (R+4)
• CA-49- Darrell Issa (R+1)
• CO-06 Mike Coffman (D+2)
• FL-26 Carlos Curbelo (D+6)
• FL-27- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (D+5)
• GA-06 Karen Handel (R+8)
• IL-06 Peter Roskam (R+2)
• IL-14 Randy Hultgren (R+5)
• IA-01 Rod Blum (D+1)
• IA-03 David Young (D+1)
• KS-03 Kevin Yoder (R+4)
• ME-02 Bruce Poliquin (R+2)
• MI-08 Mike Bishop (R+4)
• MI-11 David Trott (R+4)
• MN-02 Jason Lewis (R+2)
• MN-03 Erik Paulsen (D+1)
• NJ-02 Frank LoBiondo (R+1)
• NJ-03 Tom MacArthur (R+2)
• NJ-07 Leonard Lance (R+3)
• NJ-11 Rodney Frelinghuysen (R+3)
• NM-02 Steve Pearce (R+6)
• NY-11 Dan Donovan (R+3)
• NY-19- John Faso (R+2)
• NY-22 Claudia Tenney (R+6)
• OK-05 Steve Russell (R+10)
• PA-05 Pat Meehan (D+13)
• PA-06 Ryan Costello (D+2)
• PA-07 Charlie Dent (D+1)
• PA-17 Keith Rothfus (R+3)
• SC-01 Mark Sanford (R+10)
• TX-07 John Culberson (R+7)
• TX-32 Pete Sessions (R+5)
• UT-04 Mia Love (R+13)
• VA-02 Scott Taylor (R+3)
• VA-07 Dave Brat (R+6)
• VA-10 Barbara Comstock (D+1)

These are seats were incumbents barely held on-- seats that are seen by both parties as ultra-vulnerable this cycle. As you can see, many of the incumbents have already announced retirements-- and open Republican seats are much easier for Democrats to win

• GA-07 open (0.15%)
• NY-27 Chris Collins (0.38%)
• TX-23 open (0.43)
• MN-01 Jim Hagedorn (0.45%)
• IL-13 Rodney Davis (0.76%)
• KS-02 Steve Watkins (0.85%)
• NE-02 Donald Bacon (1.99%)
• PA-01 Brian Fitzpatrick (2.52%)
• PA-10 Scott Perry (2.64%)
• TX-21 Chip Roy (2.82%)
• TX-31 John Carter (3.00%)
• TX-24 open (3.21%)
• KY-06 Andy Barr (3.21%)
• IA-04 Steve King (3.33%)
• CA-50 Duncan Hunter (3.48)
• MO-02 Ann Wagner (3.95%)
• TX-10 Michael McCaul (3.97%)
• NY-01 Lee Zeldin (4.09)
• OH-12 Troy Balderson (4.16%)
• PA-16 Mike Kelly (4.28%)
• MI-06 Fred Upton (4.55%)
• MT-AL Greg Gianforte (4.63%)
• TX-22 open (4.98%)

Last night, one of the top candidates running for the open seat in GA-07, Marqus Cole, told us that he's "thankful that my neighbors in this district were spared the loss of resources because of the President’s illegal vanity project. However, like lots of folks, I have family members personally affected by his recklessness. My younger brother has bravely carried on my family’s tradition of service; he is the third generation to enter active duty in the U.S. Army. He is currently stationed at an Army installation in an area slated to lose funding. How can any person in good faith say they ‘support the troops’ while the President is raiding the cookie jar? We can’t elect another Republican or lukewarm Democrat to the GA-07 seat to rubber stamp the President's corruption."

In a Bloomberg News column yesterday, The Biggest Unknown About 2020, Jonathan Bernstein asserts that the biggest unknown about 2020 is about "what happens to a political party that defies the way parties have always acted."

Here’s an example. Members of Congress typically work hard to represent their districts. In particular, they try to secure benefits that they can bring home and brag about. Constituents wind up hearing good things about their representatives, and therefore tend to vote for them, all else equal. Thus the advantage of incumbency. In the era of partisan polarization, however, that “all else equal” applies less and less because voters mostly support their party’s candidate, so much so that the incumbency advantage seems to be close to disappearing.

But what happens when incumbents actively support policies that take valuable projects away from their districts? That’s what’s going on with President Donald Trump’s decision to transfer appropriated military funds to pay for his border wall (yes, the one that Mexico was supposed to pay for and that Congress has repeatedly failed to fund).

For now, these transfers appear to be getting plenty of press in the affected states-- including some with potentially vulnerable Republican senators. If this was a normal failure to win funding for projects, I’d say it’s not a big deal; certainly not something that voters would hold against their representatives. But we can’t really say that here. This isn’t a missed opportunity-- it’s a deliberate effort to take something away that had previously been secured. Sure, Trump is the one doing it. But it’s not as if Republicans in Congress can say they did everything they could to stop him.

And this is no isolated incident. Trump’s trade wars, which are actively harming domestic industries, are similar. So is his decision to conduct such an extremely partisan presidency that very few people outside the Republican Party think he’s doing a good job.

Sure, all politicians have to make hard choices that will benefit some constituents and not others. But this president seems far more reckless about it than any since, perhaps, Jimmy Carter. Back then, Democrats in Congress reacted by fighting back against Carter. That didn’t work. Now Republicans are trying the opposite. Perhaps they’ll be successful. But it’s quite possible there are just no good choices available for them right now.

Send Him Back by Nancy Ohanian