2018 Congressional Recruitment/Fundraising/Ratings Megathread

[kph14]

Peter King (NY-02) has drawn a challenger which is well-funded. Businessman Tim Gomes has loaned his campaign 1 Million Dollar to become King's first credible challenger in ages. Might King retire instead?

[kph14]

New Pew Poll. Democrats lead generic ballot by 14 points (53-39).

http://www.people-press.org/2018/01/18/public-sees-better-year-ahead-democrats-sharpen-focus-on-midterm-elections/

Lots of numbers in there showing that Democrats are more engaged than ever as well.

Those are some amazing numbers. Some of my favorites:

Winning the women vote 55-37 but also winning men 50-41
Losing the white vote only 43-49 (that Bill Clinton 1996 level)
Winning voters aged 18-19 66-27 (reallignment coming?)
Keeping it close with the senior vote
Winning white college graduates by double digits

This stuff is almost too good to be true

[kph14]

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There are now four serious Republicans running in CA-49. R vs. R runoff is now basically off the table (maybe that was never a question)

[kph14]

https://theintercept.com/2018/01/23/dccc-democratic-primaries-congress-progressives/

Big piece in The Intercept hightling how the DCCC and Dem establishment groups are once again choosing terrible centrist candidates over good ones because they can fundraise better. Essentially the same stuff they did in 2006 that gave them an unworkable majority filled with business-friendly moderates that got decimated in 2010.

PA-16, MN-02, AZ-02, NV-03, TX-07, TX-21, and VA-02 are amomg those mentioned in the story. The PA-16 example is particularly egregious because 1] The left-leaning candidate is outraising the DCCC's choice, 2]The DCCC's choice spent record breaking amounts of money in 2016 to end up not ony underperforming Clinton but the 2014 D candidate. The Angie Craig campaign in MN-02 comes off as looking especially bad.

Your statement concerning PA-16 is a plain falsehood. Hartman lost by 11 points in 2016 while in 2014 Tom Houghton(D) lost by 15 points.

[kph14]

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Chris‏  @politico_chris