Despite its early furor and spectacle, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives hangs by a thread. First-quarter fundraising results have led some analysts to give GOP incumbents a narrow edge against Democrats in 2024 congressional races, but that's all dubious methodology based on ambiguous evidence. The "blue backlash" has already begun: Democrats, pouring millions into hyper-targeted races, aim to reconquer the House by demolishing the weakest MAGA extremists.
Technically, Democrats only need to flip five seats in. '24 to regain a majority — but that's assuming they can hold all the seats of their own vulnerable members, which isn't a safe bet. For once, Democrats seem determined to go on the offensive, with a strategy that provides a thicker buffer against net losses and targets 31 seats from the party's New York war room.
At least in the House, Republicans will be on the back foot this time around, defending narrowly won turf that has already started attracting the attention of potential opponents. (The Senate is a different story, and a lot less friendly to Democrats next year. It's entirely possible that both houses of Congress will change hands.)
"With 18 Republicans sitting in districts carried by President Biden in 2020 and just five Democrats sitting in districts carried by Donald Trump, there are more than enough vulnerable GOP seats on the table to keep the House in play for Democrats," wrote Cook Political Report's Dave Wasserman in his February analysis.
As Wasserman has repeatedly noted in recent months, gerrymandering has meant that most congressional districts are non-competitive, but an unpopular presidential candidate can definitely change that calculus. Ironically, if Republicans nominate Donald Trump that's likely good news for Democrats in a number of suburban swing districts where many conservative and independent voters are tired of extremism and over the former president. Those voters could make Kevin McCarthy's tenure as House speaker exceedingly brief.
Cases about congressional redistricting in North Carolina and Ohio are likely to be decided in the courts, and could well change the math — although no one's exactly sure how. And while both the normal cyclical patterns of electoral politics and the GOP House's remarkable record of getting exactly nothing done could well spell Democratic victory in 2024, the outlook in the Senate is very different — and much better for the GOP.
Two overwhelmingly blue coastal states with a number of newly-elected and vulnerable Republicans, California and New York, may well be where Democrats take back control of the House. The pro-Democratic House Majority PAC announced last month it would throw $45 million at New York House seats, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has rolled out a new fund to specifically go after the five freshman Republicans in Biden districts who took campaign funds from the GOP's Mr. Untouchable, Rep. George Santos of New York. Kevin McCarthy has already lined up a defense fund for New York Republicans, led by Rep. Elise Stefanik, a onetime moderate turned Trump loyalist. Stefanik's upstate district is likely safe for the GOP, but this next guy's seat isn't.
Rep. George Santos (New York 3rd district) — The already-notorious Long Island congressman with the largely fictional résumé and the nonexistent volleyball injuries (from a college he did not attend) heads their list of no-brainer losses. According to a Newsday/Siena College poll. 78% of the voters in Santos' own district (including 71% of Republicans) said they want him to resign. In first-quarter FEC filings, Santos' campaign is in the red, a truly bizarre thing to report: He claimed only $25,000 on hand, $715,000 in debt, just $5,000 raised and $8,000 refunded. The real kicker? As spotted by the New York Times, McCarthy's New York defense fund is missing just one name: George Santos. Ouch.
It's just as likely, of course, that Santos will be defeated in the primary by GOP challenger and Air Force veteran Kellen Curry and won't even get the chance to lose to a Democrat. But he's unlikely to be in Congress for a second term.
There are several other vulnerable names in the House GOP's New York contingent, given the unexpected gains the party made last year, including Reps. Brandon Williams, Nick LaLota, Anthony D'Esposito, Marc Molinaro and Mike Lawler. Ousting three or four of those five would go a long way toward making Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn the new speaker.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colorado 3rd district) — One of the biggest surprises of 2022 was something that didn't quite happen, as the ultra-MAGA Colorado congresswoman with a passion for firearms and a colorful past was re-elected by a whisker, eventually beating Democrat Adam Frisch by about 600 votes, the closest congressional race anywhere in the country. Frisch plans to be back for a rematch, and according to Punchbowl News, Republicans now view Boebert as their most vulnerable incumbent next year.
Money won't be her problem: Boebert brought in a formidable $764,000 in Q1 after a previous-cycle total of more than $7 million, but Frisch is also pulling in national money, garnering $500,000 within just three days of launching his 2024 bid, with donors checking in from all 50 states.
During the tensest moments of Boebert's 2022 recount, she cast aspersions on the national GOP for a lack of support and blamed local-ticket Republicans for failing to drive turnout. But as CNN has reported, GOP sources actually warned Boebert to insulate herself against blue backlash in her district by burning more 11th-hour campaign cash in the 11th hour. This one's gonna be expensive.
Rep. John Duarte (California 13th district)
Analysis from Cook Political Report, FairVote and others have all ranked Duarte's seat — in California's Central Valley, south of Sacramento — among the most vulnerable on the West Coast. Like Santos on the opposite coast, he eked out a victory with a margin of less than two percentage points in a purple district. Duarte has reported $586,000 raised in Q1, an example of how quickly the House GOP's campaign cash-grab has taken off.
They'll need it DCCC Chair Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington has said that Duarte's district is among 13 California seats in Democrats' battle plan. Other notable Golden State targets include Reps. Mike Garcia, Young Kim, Ken Calvert and Michelle Steel, all recently elected in swing districts where Dems clearly have a shot. Those four have also amassed intimidating Q1 totals, with Steel and Calvert each reporting $1 million or more.
Rep. Juan Ciscomani (Arizona 6th district)
Ciscomani has obvious symbolic value to Republicans, as a Mexican immigrant newly elected to represent a border district east of Tucson. Democrats thought they could beat him in 2022 and think they can beat him now — but he was the top-raising GOP incumbent in Q1, ending the quarter with more than $1 million in his coffers.
Rep. David Schweikert, the Republican who represents Arizona's 1st district in the northern suburbs of Phoenix, could be in an even trickier position, although he raised $400,000 in Q1. These two seats will be among the most important targets for the DCCC, which views the Grand Canyon State's purple-to-blue shift of recent years as a critical ingredient in the national balance. Arizona will also see a hotly contested U.S. Senate race, with Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democratic progressive, likely to challenge Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema from the left, while Republicans vie to out-Trump each other on the right.
Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Oregon 5th district)
This one comes with a lot of bad feelings, since the only reason Chavez-DeRemer holds this seat southeast of Portland (at least arguably) is because the DCCC and House Majority PAC ghosted her Democratic opponent in the final weeks of the 2022 campaign. Progressive Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner had ousted centrist incumbent Rep. Kurt Schrader, and party bigwigs washed their hands of the race, teaming up instead with cryptocurrency un-billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried for a failed race in a different district. It was a deeply inglorious moment for the Democratic Party writ large. In political terms, this is a seat they can probably win back. In karmic terms, it should be first on their list
