Way too bullish on some of these vulnerable Democratic-held seats (ME-02, NM-02, NY-22, SC-01, MI-08 being Safe D, etc.). Additionally, there are some confusing R-friendly ratings in districts that I would expect the Democrats to pick up on a night they would be winning all of the seats mentioned above (namely TX-22 and TX-24). Also:
Ironically, outside of gender, Democrats struggle to embrace the electoral power of descriptive representation (i.e., identity politics) when it comes to candidate recruitment; however, Republicans have long understood the benefits of recruiting and running minority candidates in diverse districts. It is a strategy that has worked well for them in both Florida and Texas, and one they’re hoping might mitigate a massive demographic advantage for Democrats on the 25th. Their candidate, Mike Garcia, has an impressive background as a Navy fighter pilot, and perhaps more relevant for the GOP’s electoral purposes, Garcia’s Ballotpedia entry provided by his campaign notes he is a “first-generation American citizen whose family came to the United States legally.” Republicans hope he may be able to pull over some voters from the district’s 37-percent Latino population and potentially erode some of the Democrats’ advantage among this core voting bloc.
This is just flat-out untrue. The Democrats have made an effort to run candidates of color even in swing districts - including several who won in 2018. The GOP's strategy of running minority candidates in swing seats has been relatively new and mostly untested as to whether it will make a significant difference since their most notable minority recruits this cycle are in highly unfavorable seats (CA-25, CA-39, TX-07). Not to mention that in one of the states she brought up, FL, two of their minority House candidates in diverse, competitive districts lost two years ago.
