2022 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread

[Tekken_Guy]

https://mobile.twitter.com/CATargetBot/status/1331825043903418369

It looks like Nina Turner has registered a domain for a congressional run if Fudge is chosen for USDA.

[Tekken_Guy]

https://mobile.twitter.com/CATargetBot/status/1333621892645756928

Here’s an interesting name. Curtis Hertel is the Senator for Michigan’s Senate District 23, which was Gretchen Whitmer’s old district. It’s based in Lansing, and he seems to be running for congress.

[Tekken_Guy]

https://twitter.com/CATargetBot/status/1334346665679937536

A huge day for DNS registrations. Here are some highlights:

-padillaforsenate2022.com is probably California SOS Alex Padilla, the frontrunner to replace Kamala Harris in the Senate.
-hinson4senate.com could be referring to IA-01 congresswoman-elect Ashley Hinson, preparing to replace Chuck Grassley.
-Matt Whitaker, former Acting AG under Trump, is also planning on running for Grassley’s seat. He previously ran for what is now Joni Ernst’s seat in 2024.
-Anita Earls is a Democratic justice on the North Carolina Supreme Court first elected in 2018. She could be a strong challenger in 2022.
-Dale Strong is a Republican county commissioner in Madison County, AL (Huntsville) in AL-05. Which suggests Mo Brooks is planning on running for Richard Shelby’s senate seat (he previously ran in the 2017 special election).

[Tekken_Guy]

School board president Nicholas D'Agostino (R-Wantage) has announced he'll challenge Rep. Josh Gottheimer in NJ-05. He uses a wheelchair and says he's inspired by Madison Cawthorn being elected to Congress last year. Describes himself a "conservative Republican" but is opposed to "prosecuting drug addiction and other 'victimless crimes.'"

Source

Yeah, I’m sure North Jersey is begging for their own Cawthorn.

[Tekken_Guy]

School board president Nicholas D'Agostino (R-Wantage) has announced he'll challenge Rep. Josh Gottheimer in NJ-05. He uses a wheelchair and says he's inspired by Madison Cawthorn being elected to Congress last year. Describes himself a "conservative Republican" but is opposed to "prosecuting drug addiction and other 'victimless crimes.'"

Source

Yeah, I’m sure North Jersey is begging for their own Cawthorn.

Him making that comparison to himself, especially in a district that is sure to get more Democratic, is a one-way ticket to losing worse than John McCann.

Well, maybe he gets a new Northwest Jersey R-sink.

[Tekken_Guy]

https://twitter.com/CATargetBot/status/1380205641441058823

Huge news out of VA-02. Jen Kiggans is a State Senator in a Clinton district that no Republican has carried in a statewide race since.

[Tekken_Guy]

https://www.wktv.com/content/news/Brindisi-decides-not-to-run-for-Congress-in-2022-574700631.html

Brindisi has withdrawn from the NY-22 (pending redistricting) race after declaring his intention to retake his seat in January.

Everything upstate will look a lot different with new maps, if he was in a primary in a new Biden +12 seat he might have lost to someone more liberal. I do think the Ds will gerrymander NY at the direction of the national party that needs it to offset GOP ones elsewhere.

At the very least it sounds like Oneida will stay in a solidly Republican district.

[Tekken_Guy]

https://www.wktv.com/content/news/Brindisi-decides-not-to-run-for-Congress-in-2022-574700631.html

Brindisi has withdrawn from the NY-22 (pending redistricting) race after declaring his intention to retake his seat in January.

Everything upstate will look a lot different with new maps, if he was in a primary in a new Biden +12 seat he might have lost to someone more liberal. I do think the Ds will gerrymander NY at the direction of the national party that needs it to offset GOP ones elsewhere.

At the very least it sounds like Oneida will stay in a solidly Republican district.

Dems will put Utica in a blue leaning district and probably have the rest of the county in an ultra red NY-21.

I worry that him dropping out means the opposite and Utica is going to get stuck to the Adirondacks or something.

Yeah that’s the feeling I was getting.

[Tekken_Guy]

Luria hanging on would greatly improve our chances of winning the House majority, so it’s nice to see.

Definitely, but I’m still not sold.  Kiggins is definitely an over-hyped candidate, but she’s still a solid recruit in a Generic Republican sort of way.  This race will likely be very competitive either way, but I’m still bearish about Luria’s chances.

Very frustrating, but it doesn't appear Dems are really actively trying to go after Steel or Kim at this point.

Kim was a recruiting fail, although it was also always going to be the toughest nut to crack of the Orange County seats.  Even at the height of the Dobbs backlash, this was clearly not going to be the year we flipped her seat.  

Our odds of beating Steel are definitely lower than they were in August.  Jay Chen isn’t a bad candidate, but he doesn’t seem to be a particularly good one either.  A big part of why we didn’t get boxed out in the old version of Kim’s seat in 2018 was b/c Chen took one for the team and dropped out with the understanding that the primary field would be cleared for him in the next competitive Orange County House race.  I think it was worth it, but we just gotta bite the bullet here.  

Depending on what internal polling looks like, this might be a seat where it makes sense to shift money to boosting an incumbent who is running a strong, competitive race but needs another cash infusion to keep from getting killed in the ad wars during the home stretch.  

The one that would frustrate me is if the DCCC cuts Christy Smith loose for some reason (although I don’t think they will and IIRC, she’s not exactly wanting for money).  She’s definitely got a solid shot of flipping this seat (I’d even argue this will probably be the year Garcia goes down) and we’re gonna need every pickup we can get just to cancel out the inevitable losses in places like FL, GA-6, AZ-6, etc.  

Even if Smith is running a bad campaign again, this is one of those seats where partisanship and the current party coalition demographics alone will generally still give Democrats at least a 50-50 shot in any given non-off year GE.

 I think Garcia is still favored. This is going to be a worse year than 2020 for Dems and Garcia’s district is only slightly worse for him than the old one. This is also why I think Valadao wins too.

[Tekken_Guy]

What's funny about that poll is that Democrats are actually doing better with Whites than 2020 (-15 vs. -17) and only slightly worse than 2018 (-10). If it was actually -15, that would not be a terrible result at all.

There seems to be a major delta though in some of the polling we're getting. 538 has Biden's LV/RV approval at about -8 right now. Fox's 46/53 yesterday was close, CBS's 48/52 was rosier.

This one though has Biden's approval at -19, 39/58. So way off, even from the Adults average on 538 (-10). We're seeing a divergence where some polls are finding this type of result while others are finding a better result for him among LV.

This poll also has a 32 pt shift in one month among Independent Women, which just seems... highly unlikely, with a gender gap of only -5 for Dems among Men, and the race tied among women. Both those things seem highly unlikely, same with 18% of black voters going for GOP or 18-29 year olds only barely getting +10 for Ds.

Throw it in the average with everything else, but a poll that also has Trump leading in 2024 and with a 43/52 favorability is also suspect in that it's likely too GOP leaning.

I have no doubt that Trump is probably leading Biden nationally right now.

Not much proof of that; most of the (small amount of) national polls we've gotten have given Biden an edge, with Trump having much worse favorability ratings.

National polls showed Biden with a huge edge over Trump in 2020 and we all know how that turned out.

You think Trump would actually win the popular vote?

[Tekken_Guy]

Okay, I give up, we're doomed.

Give up on the House. Maybe a 5% chance Dems hold it the way things are going now.

Try to save the Senate, but honestly that's probably Tilt Republican by now.

Ditch Biden in 2024, the public has given up on him.

Sure ditch Biden. Harris will lose by more.

[Tekken_Guy]

Gas prices went up over the past two weeks or so. They are now going down.

See you all in two weeks.

And inflation in other sectors is only getting worse.

[Tekken_Guy]

It would be something if this ended up being a neutral or Democratic year, and would be unprecedented. Over the last century, there have only been four midterms in which the President's party did well - 1934 (New Deal realignment), 1962 (Cuban Missile Crisis), 1998 (Clinton impeachment), and 2002 (9/11 effect). What distinguishes 2022 from these preceding years is that the incumbent President in those years enjoyed strong approval ratings, while Biden's approval (according to RCP) is at around 43%, similar to Obama's in 2010. It would be extraordinary if Democrats managed to hold their ground with the President underwater by 10 points in approvals.

I had hope for this in 2014, but the fundamentals won out unfortunately.  At this point the senate races (PA and AZ) where Dems were doing better than the fundamentals are now lining up more closely with an environment that is around R+1 or R+2.  

GA and WI too.

[Tekken_Guy]

The west coast results look a bit discordant…especially Mike Levin losing while Salinas wins in OR-06; very weird given what Oregon is looking like atm.

It also does not take into account the apocalyptic rain on Tuesday in SoCal. Not a single soul will dare leave their house or workplace to vote lest they drown in the half inch of precipitation.

The rain is not going to have any effect on any races unless they’re Mike Garcia 2020 close.

[Tekken_Guy]

I saw this morning typical Atlas Democrats bragging about the NBC NEWS Poll showing D's ahead 48-47.

However the underlying things have not being discussed. 47 % want change from Pres Bidens Leadership, only 28 % of Independents approving of Biden.

Those two Numbers are a rip for a complete disaster for Democrats on Tuesday. Their District Candidates and Statewide Candidates have to run well ahead of Biden as Bill McInturf alluded to.

I mean these numbers aren’t too crazy when you look at the 2020 results. Trump got 47% of the vote in the highest turnout election since the turn of the 20th century and the 2nd most amount of votes do any presidential candidate ever. Republicans have all the Trump 2020 voters supporting them.

Democrats are faltering with 3-4% of the majority that voted for Biden. It’s the same 3-4% that screwed around and let Trump slip through in the first place back in 2016 but got their sh1t together 4 years later when they realized he could actually win again.

The midterms are lost and have been lost since November 2020. 2024 is another story. With Trump likely running again, Democrats should have an easier time convincing that last 3-4% to come back and block another Trump term.

Isn't there a decent chance DeSantis ends up with the nomination instead? With him atop the ticket it'll be a lot harder to get those "stop Trump" voters back IMO.