The NRCC Is Missing The Point
On A List Of (Mis)Targets
So, the NRCC decided to drop a list of target seats, because… well, I actually have no idea why they'd do that given the fact that lines are going to be totally redrawn, but they did, so let's have some fun with this. (These comments are based on current lines, as are their targets. I don't need to be told that district lines could change. I know.) Their list is insanity.
So, there are three categories of potential targets - traditional battlegrounds, seats where the incumbent didn't match Biden, and then a weird mix of "Redistricting" seats, which somehow includes the North Carolina 2nd, which voted for Joe Biden by 30%, but sure? I don't really get that one, or really any of that category, really, so that's gonna get put aside for the purposes of, well, my sanity. The weak incumbents list includes Katie Porter (yeah, sure), and Colin Allred (again, definitively), so you know it's a good list, and then there's the larger battleground targets list, which is… well, just bad.
I get the idea that a broad playing field is important and just because you call a seat a target doesn't mean it will get money, I get all that, but this list is absolutely dumb as shit. You've got the white parts of Dallas and increasingly blue Orange County, so you're counting on some suburban reversion your way - which, uh, you sure you're getting, given everything going on these days? - before pivoting to the three south Texas seats that are close because of the weird Texas Hispanics results from 2020.
You've got some sensible seats in here - AZ-01 is vulnerable, for instance, and I think the GOP get Tim Ryan's seat - but some of this is just a fundamental misunderstanding of both political geography and coalitions. How, for instance, is Charlie Crist a target in his Biden +4, Crist +6 Florida district? Do you seriously think you're winning Florida by 9 any time soon? You think you can win the sprinting left Kansas 3rd with Laura Kelly, who won the seat by 20% in 2018, at the top of the ticket in 2022? Have the NRCC lost their minds?
So, the main problem is that the GOP are pro-having cake and pro-eating cake but they don't know that. I say this because it is abundantly clear that they think they can take Trump-era turnout and margins in some places - south Texas, Mahoning, Nevada (where the GOP have two targets) - and then just toss in a bunch of suburban reversion on top of that. I mean, that's the only way you start to look at the Biden +11 Georgia 6th as a possible target, but of course you can't do that. How do we know this? The Australian right tried it and failed. They tried this exact trick, and it came loose in regional Queensland and regional Tasmania. You know what those two stretches of geography would be best compared to in the US? Youngstown, Ohio or Scranton, Pennsylvania.
The GOP can play in south Texas, maybe, but the conditions in which they are credible in south Texas are the conditions in which they lose the Texas 7th by 12%. They will not happen on the same day, because it will take a statewide and national strategy of abandoning the suburbs for the low propensity Trump voters that came out in 2020. If they try and pivot back to the suburbs, then you can kiss south Texas goodbye. They don't seem to understand that this is, fundamentally, a tradeoff - and this is a bad, bad sign for the GOP.
If the GOP do not understand this, then they will make dumb, bad, and sub-optimal decisions. As a partisan, I'd love them to do so. As an analyst, this list is contradictory and self defeating, but also shows that, beyond what the GOP can get through new lines, there aren't actually a lot of seats they can call themselves all that plausible to win in 2022.
Go through that list of targets and actually squarely tell me which *non-gerrymandering* seats the GOP should be favoured or tossup to win. Arizona 1st, maybe? Maine 2nd, again, maybe? You could maybe get me interested in GOP chances in Lauren Underwood's IL-14 or Cheri Bustos' IL-17, but you have to think both get made bluer in redistricting. The GOP are interested in taking out Peter DeFazio in Oregon, but again, he'll get cleaned up by the mapmakers. The House GOP actually did really well in 2020, and how well they did is making their ambitions get above their actual chances. They aren't going to cut wide swathes into Biden territory, and every Democrat should wish them the absolute best in trying - and wasting their time and money. Katie Porter's coming back to Congress, and every dime and dollar spent to beat her is money that can't be better spent.
At some point, the GOP will have to decide where they actually think they can win, and every Democrat should pray that they miss the point as spectacularly then as they did this week. If they do, Democrats will waltz into the majority again in 2 years. If they find a sensible path that doesn't involve nonsense and fantasy, then, they've got a shot at the majority. This target list doesn't bode well for their chances.