2020 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread v2

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Inside Elections released their initial ratings of NC's new congressional districts:

https://insideelections.com/ratings/house/2020-house-ratings-december-6-2019

NC-02: Likely D
NC-06: Likely D
NC-08: Likely R
NC-09: Lean R

Every other seat is either Solid D or Solid R for the party that holds them.

Was this the one who said they put NC-2 and NC-6 as Likely rather than Safe only to keep them on the chart as visible pickups?

No, that was Cook, but I assume IE has a similar policy. Sabato rated both NC-02 and NC-06 as Safe D, though.

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RRH Elections updated their House ratings:

https://rrhelections.com/index.php/2019/12/07/rrh-elections-december-2019-house-ratings/

Moved in favor of Republicans
CA-21: Tossup from Lean D
CA-25: Tossup from Likely D
CA-50: Likely R from Lean R
IL-12: Safe R from Likely R
IN-1: Likely D from Safe D
MI-1: Safe R from Likely R
NY-17: Likely D from Safe D
NY-27: Likely R from Lean R
NC-3: Safe R from Likely R
NC-9: Likely R from Lean R
NC-13: Safe R from Likely R
WA-10: Likely D from Safe D
WV-2: Safe R from Likely R

Moved in favor of Democrats
CA-8: Likely R from Safe R
CA-24: Safe D from Likely D
IL-6: Likely D from Lean D
MO-2: Lean R from Likely R
NJ-3: Lean D from Tossup
NY-2: Lean R from Likely R
NC-2: Safe D from Lean R
NC-6: Safe D from Safe R
NC-8: Likely R from Safe R

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https://twitter.com/brookefoxnews/status/1204047644492017668

Welp.  There goes the VAGOP's chance of making the Senate seat even 1% competitive.  Now they don't even have hope for a miracle.

Taylor is damaged goods. I doubt he would have made the Senate race competitive.

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New internals from the Congressional Leadership Fund, conducted by Remington.


TX-10:
McCaul 50
Hutcheson 41
Undecided 9

PA-01:
Fitzpatrick 50
Wachspress 36
Undecided 14

CLF’s internals were way off in 2018, so I’m taking these with a grain of salt.

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https://twitter.com/ThomasSuddes/status/1205631064682770433

Ryan is safe for 2020, though he could easily become a redistricting victim in 2022.

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The NRCC is on twitter right now writing press releases against Wexton in VA-10.




How are we this stupid? How?

I feel with her district it's simply that a lot of big donor party insider types live there. The party kept spending tons of cash in VA-10 last year despite it being an obvious triage.

This is very true. I would also add that Comstock's connections to party officials likely played a role in the high amount of money spent here. Comstock has worked in various capacities in Republican party politics, and it wouldn't surprise me if some of her colleagues in high places were able to sway the NRCC to spend money on her race. An incumbent who didn't have a long history as a party insider likely would have been left for dead.

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Brad Parscale strikes again. So Trump won all of those districts and the "Generic Dem" is only down by 3? Without the incumbents even being named? That's not a good poll for Rs.

While these numbers certainly aren’t the best for Trump, I feel like polls that lump all the Trump-Democratic districts together are not very instructive. There’s a world of difference between somewhere like GA-06 and MN-07 in terms of support for impeachment, so to mush these districts together really misses the bigger picture.

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Republican internal shows Republican up by 9 in IL-06:

https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1209303101594841088?s=20

LOL Likely D.

Ives is possibly the worst fit for that district.

Think there is something funky going on with this poll though- it still has dems up 48-43 on the generic ballot.

I wonder if this is one of those polls where they ask about respondents' congressional preferences first, and then ask a series of (loaded) questions before getting into the horse race. It might explain why there is such a big discrepancy. They didn't release any of their full data, so it's hard to tell.

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I think a Dem net pickup would require something more dramatic than just those seats.  Cartwright, Peterson, Brindisi, the open IA-02, etc. are going to flip unless the presidential election is a Dem blowout.

What? This is Iowa's most Democratic district.

If we're going strictly off of the 2016 presidential margin, then IA-02 is more Republican than IA-01 and IA-03 (although they're all within a point of each other). It also voted marginally to the right of IA-03 in last year's gubernatorial election and voted to the right of IA-01 in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections.

So no, it is not the "most Democratic district" by those metrics.

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Atlas: Biden can flip a Trump +10 district blue if he runs, because of muh Pennsylvania roots and muh blue collar identity

Also Atlas: You're CRAZY if you think a Clinton +1, Romney +21 district could flip R if a literal Socialist is nominated

Atlas: an incumbent winning reelection while the opposing Presidential candidate wins it is "flipping" a district

We're talking about Presidential politics here, so yes, sure.

There are plenty of people here who think Biden will lose PA-08. Not to mention, PA-08 and TX-07 are entirely different districts with entirely different demographic profiles so it's pretty stupid to make that comparison.

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https://twitter.com/NickReisman/status/1213211116484079616

NY-19 : Molinaro won't run, a big recruitment failure to say the least

Huge blow to the GOP here. Although NY-19 should be one of their high priority seats, many Republicans were hoping that Molinaro would jump in and become a formidable challenger to Rep. Delgado.

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A few other fundraising figures:

https://twitter.com/kirk_bado/status/1214203474474344450

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Here is a roundup of fundraising numbers from today, courtesy of DailyKos:

https://twitter.com/DKElections/status/1214299372730621952

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UT-04: Ben McAdams raised around $900K in Q4

https://utahpolicy.com/index.php/features/today-at-utah-policy/22584-campaign-sources-mcadams-raised-nearly-1-million-in-campaign-cash-has-nearly-2-million-in-the-bank

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TX-21: Wendy Davis (D) raised over $900K in Q4

https://mobile.twitter.com/TexasTribAbby/status/1214647048873619456

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Fundraising update (various races):

https://twitter.com/kirk_bado/status/1216730519947415552

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For those who think that McSally is a bad candidate
https://twitter.com/JamesArkin/status/1217064088766943232?s=20

Kelly still outraised her:

https://twitter.com/yvonnewingett/status/1217113465036234753

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Sabato makes some ratings changes:

NH-SEN: Lean D -> Likely D
VA-SEN: Likely D -> Safe D

VT-GOV: Likely R -> Lean R

CA-50: Likely R -> Safe R

Inside Elections have also moved CA-50 to Safe R, making it now Safe by all of the big three pundits. I believe this is the first district this cycle that was once seen as competitive by all three that has been moved off the table.

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NJ-11: Rosemary Becchi (R), a former candidate for the Republican nomination for NJ-07 this cycle, has decided to switch races and challenge Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D) in NJ-11-

https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/becchi-will-challenge-sherrill-instead-of-malinowski/

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FL-18: Rep. Brian Mast (R) raised $764K in Q4, has $1.2M on hand-

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/316483-mast-2019-1-2m-on-hand

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Fundraising update for NJ-02, NJ-03, and PA-10:

https://twitter.com/kirk_bado/status/1219649011721949187

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Dave Richter (R), the GOP candidate for NJ-02 before Rep. Jeff Van Drew's party switch, is considering moving to the NJ-03 race against Rep. Andy Kim (D)-

https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/richter-might-drop-van-drew-challenge-run-against-kim/

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Cook moved the CA-25 special election from Lean D to Likely D-

https://cookpolitical.com/analysis/house/california-house/ca-25-special-election-moves-lean-likely-democratic

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Here are the full Q4 fundraising numbers for incumbents targeted by the DCCC and NRCC:

https://twitter.com/rpyers/status/1223458974520893441

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Crystal Ball rating changes
http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/the-republicans-house-chances-its-on-trump/

Most of these changes make sense except maybe MN-1, don’t see any reason to downgrade it to Lean R. Among the majors changes they’re moving NY-19 and UT-4 to Lean D from Tossup, at the same time they’re moving PA-1 from Tossup to Lean R.

All of the Likely R seats moved to Safe R were way overdue.

These rating changes are pretty good on the whole. My only gripes are that PA-01 at Lean R seems a bit premature (though Fitzpatrick has a slight advantage at the moment), and MN-01 and TX-07 did not deserve to be downgraded because, in the end, I don't think the opposing party will make either of those seats competitive.