If you headed the DCCC in 2018.....

[publicunofficial]

If the DCCC seriously wants to take back the House, they HAVE to look into seats that they've ignored in the past or seats they've never even considered.

They absolutely cannot afford to say "Well this seat is only R+1, but ehhhh the incumbent raises a lot of money so let's not bother". I'm tired of half the competitive seats getting taken off the table before the start of primary season because the DCCC just gave up looking for a candidate there.


Top-Tier (Seats I cannot envision a Democratic majority without):

-CO-06
-IA-01
-CA-49
-FL-26
-VA-10
-TX-23
-NE-02

Mid-Tier (Tougher races, but still seats the DCCC needs to target):

-AZ-02
-MN-02
-MN-03
-CA-10
-CA-21
-CA-25
-NY-01
-NY-19
-NY-22
-NY-24
-ME-02
-FL-18
-FL-27
-PA-06
-PA-07
-PA-08
-KS-03
-IA-03
-VA-02
-WA-08

Third Tier (The DCCC should look for candidates here and try to make something happen, but are still long-shots that should be triaged early if conditions aren't right):

-MT-AL
-CA-39
-CA-45
-CA-48
-UT-04
-CO-03
-TX-32
-TX-07
-NY-21
-NY-11
-NY-23
-NJ-02
-NJ-03
-NJ-07
-IL-12
-IL-13
-IL-06
-MI-07
-MI-08
-MI-11
-KY-06

A lot of these second and third tier seats are in areas where Democrats need to be competitive again if they want to stop Trump's re-election. Even a losing campaign in these areas is useful to gauging which areas have fully trended to the right and which are still open to the right kind of Democrat.

[publicunofficial]

Hate to break it to you publicunofficial, but IA-01 is definitely tier two or even three. The rest I agree. Blum sems pretty safe, and Iowa is quickly trending hard right and soon IA-01 will stabilize at around R+6 with not much elasticity. That's what I see going forward.

If IA-01 is a considered Safe R seat, then the Democrats shouldn't even bother existing. The midwest has swung back and forth between parties for decades now, and if Democrats can't compete in a seat that Bruce Braley easily held 4 years ago then something has gone terribly wrong.

That's why I say IA-01 is a must-win seat. If Democrats can't make a race there, then they can't compete ANYWHERE.

[publicunofficial]

Hate to break it to you publicunofficial, but IA-01 is definitely tier two or even three. The rest I agree. Blum sems pretty safe, and Iowa is quickly trending hard right and soon IA-01 will stabilize at around R+6 with not much elasticity. That's what I see going forward.

If IA-01 is a considered Safe R seat, then the Democrats shouldn't even bother existing. The midwest has swung back and forth between parties for decades now, and if Democrats can't compete in a seat that Bruce Braley easily held 4 years ago then something has gone terribly wrong.

That's why I say IA-01 is a must-win seat. If Democrats can't make a race there, then they can't compete ANYWHERE.

If it opens up in 2020 or 2022, then maybe (it would likely be a "last hoorah" and flip by 2026 or 2028), but trust me, an Iowa zoom to the right is something that was a long time coming, and for a while I just knew it would happen sooner or later. Sorry Democrats, Iowa is gone (or will be realyl soon) and within 10 years it'll be Likely R (and closer to safe), and about R+10, with IA-04 being the most conservative district, and IA-02 and -03 being the least.

That said, I accept that my party will have totally lost New Hampshire by 2020 or 2022. It was bound to happen, and I saw it coming a while ago.

See this is the dumb logic I'm tired of. A districts PVI moves a few points to the left or right and people go "Oh well guess that's for the rest of time".

How about fighting AGAINST trends? How about winning BACK voters who've been open to voting for you for the majority of their lives. I'm not saying Democrats should pump all their money into the coal counties of West Virginia here, and excuse me if I don't consider Rod Blum to be an unstoppable juggernaut. I'm tired of the defeatist attitude of "Oh a Republican won by a slim margin in a seat we used to hold? Well I guess that's theirs forever now."

Also for gods sake, stop drinking the TnVol Kool-Aid on New Hampshire.

[publicunofficial]

Heisenberg: We're probably going to debate this until election day when one of us is proved wrong, so I'm dropping it. You said there is a path to a majority without IA-01 or IA-03. I'm curious as to what you think that is. I could probably formulate such a path, but it would involve seats that have way more factors going against Democrats than in Iowa.

[publicunofficial]

So Iowa is trending away from Democrats and should be left to rot, but Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Dayton, Ohio are just ITCHING for a Democratic comeback?

Do you see where you lose me here?


Also everything you said about Iowa could also be said about Maine, but I see you have ME-02 on the list as well.

[publicunofficial]

What about NY-02, where Democrats have always had trouble getting elected locally, have nearly no bench in the district, and also trended towards Trump? I've heard your arguments but it's absolutely insane to me to call that a top-tier seat and then say IA-01 and IA-03 out of reach.

[publicunofficial]

What about NY-02, where Democrats have always had trouble getting elected locally, have nearly no bench in the district, and also trended towards Trump? I've heard your arguments but it's absolutely insane to me to call that a top-tier seat and then say IA-01 and IA-03 out of reach.

Wait, I keep getting NY-02 and NY-03 mixed up for some reason. But still, despite NY-02 moving towards Trump, I wouldn't be surprised if King "sleepwalks" and gets defeated by Steve Bellone (the only Democrat I can see picking up that seat in the near future). It's a swing district nationally, but seems more GOP downballot.

And you think that's a more plausible scenario than "Area that has habitually been swingy, continues to be swingy"?

You seem willing to call seats competitive because of hypothetical scenarios where Democrats land a solid candidate and the national environment carries them, but Iowa has become immune to both of those factors over basically a three year period?

To me it just seems like if Democrats believe they have lost touch with the WWC, particularly in the midwest, and they intend to attempt to mend that relationship, then Iowa's 1st is the best place to start, isn't it? Now if you're a hack who fully believes that the Democrats are down for the count in the Mid-West, then by all means call Iowa a Safe R state. But I don't buy it.

[publicunofficial]

Is Pete Sessions that entrenched that only one person on this thread has mentioned him? He represents a Clinton district.

Unseating a long-time incumbent in a district like that seems like a big task to ask of the TX Democratic Party. It's worth pursuing but I don't have my hopes up.

[publicunofficial]

Heisenberg: We're probably going to debate this until election day when one of us is proved wrong, so I'm dropping it. You said there is a path to a majority without IA-01 or IA-03. I'm curious as to what you think that is. I could probably formulate such a path, but it would involve seats that have way more factors going against Democrats than in Iowa.

Actually, not that unrealistic:

AZ-2; CA-10, 21, 25, 39, 45, 48, 49; CO-6; FL-26, 27; GA-6, 7; IL-6; KS-3; KY-6; ME-2; MI-11; MN-2, 3; NE-2; NJ-2, 3, 7; NY-1, 2, 13, 19, 22, 23; OH-1; PA-6, 7, 8, 16; TX-7, 23, 32; VA-2, 10; WA-3, 8; WV-2

A lot of these would obviously require a combo of wave and strong recruitment, but a House majority is definitely achievable without the Iowa seats (and more sustainable than relying on the Iowa seats in the long-run, anyways).

WV-02 and KY-06 are more in reach than Iowa? And more sustainable in the long run? Am I taking crazy pills here?