The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

Yesterday I talked about how Republicans were cutting campaign funds to seats they had given up on as indefensible as America gets closer to midterm elections in less than six weeks. Now, Republicans have a bigger problem as they are finding out that there's basically no such thing as a safe House district anymore as more and more GOP-held seats that were out of the picture as recently as last month are now completely in play, and Republicans are scrambling to defend them.

Internal Democratic polling conducted in August and September revealed the party's candidate leading or trailing by small margins in a dozen seats on the outer edges of the battlefield. And outside money is already starting to flow beyond the 50 or so districts that initially drew major TV ad reservations.

The GOP's top House super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, funneled nearly $3 million into a few sleeper races that had previously received little national attention. And the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee booked more than $100,000 of airtime in Republican Rep. Mike Kelly’s northwestern Pennsylvania district, which President Trump carried by 20 points.

“For Republicans, this is a game of Whac-A-Mole,” said John Lapp, a Democratic strategist who served as the DCCC’s executive director in 2006. “With a battleground map this big, they simply can’t be everywhere. There are competitive races in blue, purple, and ruby-red districts popping up every day.“

The CLF launched ad buys last week in seats held by Reps. George Holding of North Carolina, Fred Upton of Michigan, and Rodney Davis of Illinois, where private Democratic polling has found tight contests.

Two or more internal Democratic surveys conducted in the past two months found single-digit races in seats held by Republican Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Rob Woodall of Georgia, Vern Buchanan of Florida, Ted Budd of North Carolina, Ann Wagner of Missouri, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, and John Carter of Texas, and in Florida's open 15th District.

And multiple Democratic polls have found a single-digit race in Montana, where former state Rep. Kathleen Williams is challenging Republican Rep. Greg Gianforte.

Several of these seats are in costly media markets, which can complicate the ability of outside groups from either side to make a serious investment. But nearly all are districts Trump carried by margins ranging from 5 points to 13 points, and the polling is a sign of increasingly unfavorable atmospherics for Republicans after a turbulent summer.

"Almost nobody should assume that they’re cruising," Republican pollster Glen Bolger said. "If the president won by 10 points or less, it's a competitive race."

Most federal election years there's maybe 20 competitive House races.  Even with all 435 House seats up for grab every two years, most elections see maybe 5% of those seats ever in any danger of changing hands, and maybe half that as truly competitive, counting both parties.

2018 is massively different.  Republicans face defending more than 70 seats, that's nearly a third of their caucus, and 50-60 of those seats are legitimately in play, with 25 or so true tossups.

Now we're seeing 8 more seats shift from in play to competitive.

Cook Political Report's House ratings find a similar shift.  Democrats have 4 open seats to defend that are competitive and 9 more that are in play (a normal election cycle total) but Republicans now have 68 seats that are competitive and have to defend another 25 on top of that.

The losses for the GOP could be catastrophic, on the level of 2010 for the Democrats, just from the number of seats in play.  Yes, Dems could gain 60 seats.  It's that bad for the GOP right now.

It's only going to get worse if we provide the finishing blow.