2022 Generic Ballot / Recruitment / Fundraising / Ratings Megathread

[wesmoorenerd]

https://twitter.com/heathermizeur/status/1354795224724332550?s=20

Heather Mizeur, former State Delegate and candidate for Governor in 2014, is now in for MD-01. Clearly banking on a gerrymander from the General Assembly. Let's hope, because Andy Harris is insane and needs to go.

[wesmoorenerd]

Cook has rated the new NH-01 and NH-02 as tossups:

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1533891843817148421

This means that they now have initial ratings for every new congressional district (see chart here)-

https://www.cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings

Tossup/Tilt R seems fair for NH-01. NH-02, I think, is Lean D.

[wesmoorenerd]

https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/notes-on-the-state-of-politics-june-22-2022/

Sabato's Crystal Ball made three rating changes today, all in favor of Republicans:

AK-AL Special- Likely R > Safe R
CA-45 (Steel)- Toss-up > Lean R
VA-10 (Wexton)- Safe D > Likely D

The Alaska and CA-45 moves are reasonable. The VA-10 move is laughable.

[wesmoorenerd]

https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/notes-on-the-state-of-politics-june-22-2022/

Sabato's Crystal Ball made three rating changes today, all in favor of Republicans:

AK-AL Special- Likely R > Safe R
CA-45 (Steel)- Toss-up > Lean R
VA-10 (Wexton)- Safe D > Likely D

The Alaska and CA-45 moves are reasonable. The VA-10 move is laughable.

Real "NJ -> Leans D" 2018 vibes

Likely D isn't too unreasonable given the likely nature of the year and the fact Youngkin came close in the district. Def on the more solid end of it though so imo there wasn't really a need to move it, but the district did get slightly redder from redistricting and Wexton "only" won by 13 in 2020.

It's no different to how in 2020 many forecasters had states such as Kansas as Likely Trump even though statistically they were probably safe.

Put that another way: Youngkin wasn't able to win this district despite winning a state that's basically safely blue at this point. I'm reminded of VA-05, a district that Dems tried to contest a few times last decade even though Corey freaking Stewart won it. Tim Kaine couldn't break through there, and neither could Cockburn or Webb. Youngkin couldn't break through in VA-10, and Cao won't be able to either.

[wesmoorenerd]

https://rollcall.com/2022/06/14/dccc-designates-four-more-members-for-special-protection/

The DCCC has added the incumbents in MD-06, NH-02, NM-03, and IN-01 to their list of Frontline Democrats.

They have also added candidates in a number of seats to their Red to Blue program which identifies possible Republican-held and open seats as targets:

-Jevin Hodge (AZ-01, Schweikert)
-Annette Taddeo (FL-27, Taddeo)
-Don Davis (NC-01, OPEN)
-Wiley Nickel (NC-13, OPEN)
-Jeff Jackson (NC-14, OPEN)
-Bridget Fleming (NY-01, OPEN)
-Francis Conole (NY-22, OPEN)
-Val Hoyle (OR-04, OPEN)
-Jamie McLeod Skinner (OR-05, OPEN)
-Andrea Salinas (OR-06, New Seat)
-Chris Deluzio (PA-17, OPEN)

Jevin Hodge SUCKS. Don’t know if I could stomach voting for him, and I hope he loses the primary.

He didn't seem like a particularly impressive addition. What's so bad about him?

[wesmoorenerd]

Just one data point, of course, but obviously a good one for Dems. FiveThirtyEight GCB average is below R+2 for the first time since early February.

[wesmoorenerd]

Fundraising numbers used to be a good publicly-accessible metric for how much support various candidates have amongst their own partys’ establishment. The problem is that as Democrats have garnered more and more of the college white vote, they’ve also begun massively outspending Rs on the campaign trail (especially since 2016), particularly at the senate level. We have seen the results amongst a more partisan, online-oriented electorate (where it is cheaper than ever before to get your message out), and they’ve been…not great.

Dems lit hundreds of millions on fire in senate races they didn’t come within even eight points of winning in 2020 (see: SC, ME, KY, etc.).

The reality is that while in-state dollars matter a little, out-of-state fundraising can often be actively counterproductive due to opening up an easy new line of attack for your opponent. And Dems have way more mega donors than Rs do these days, which is not translating to results in many places.

So no, the fundraising numbers don’t really matter all that much - we’ve seen this show before. If you could dig up in-state fundraising dollars though, that would be way more interesting.

I think metrics like the Fetterman/Oz race are definitely points that stand out, as in you have one candidate raising $5M worth of contributions <$200 and the other... $150K.

I think the point here is that even as Dems get more of the upper middle class/college+ vote, you'd still expect Rs to be doing well since this should be an incredibly easy environment for them to raise $$$. If they can't raise it during a midterm where Bidens approval is <40%, then that is a terrible look for them imo.

And it's not like Rs cant raise money. Look at Louisiana - Kennedy raised $8M+. Scott raised $4M+ in SC. Johnson raised $6-7M in WI. It's not like it's not possible - so to me, it's rightfully a bad look when others in competitive swing races are barely doing anything.

I can definitely buy fundraising being a bigger deal in races with a D incumbent or no incumbent at all and an R candidate who's running a lazy campaign. Oz and Vance seem like perfect examples -- they're blowing their chances at defining themselves and they won't have the money to make much of a dent in the narrative later on in the campaign.

[wesmoorenerd]

A tied NPV could easily still result in a D majority. There are 215 seats that lean to the left of the national average, you really don't think they could pick off three more with good incumbents?

[wesmoorenerd]

National Journal released their rankings of the top 20 House seats most likely to flip:

https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/718341/ihotlineis-2022-house-power-rankings/

1. WI-03 (Open)
2. MI-10 (Open)
3. AZ-02 (D, O'Halleran)
4. AZ-06 (Open)
5. TX-15 (Open)
6. IA-03 (Axne)
7. NJ-07 (Malinowski)
8. PA-07 (Wild)
9. MI-07 (Slotkin)
10. MI-08 (Kildee)
11. CA-22 (Valadao)
12. VA-02 (Luria)
13. OH-09 (Kaptur)
14. ME-02 (Golden)
15. IL-17 (Open)
16. PA-08 (Cartwright)
17. MI-03 (Meijer)
18. PA-17 (Open)
19. NV-03 (Lee)
20. NY-22 (Open)

All of these districts are highly vulnerable (and the Democratic-held ones especially will likely flip), but the ordering of these rankings and some omissions (TN-05, GA-06, the two D-held Florida districts that were made more Republican in redistricting - although they might see those ones as givens already - as well as seats like CA-27 and IL-13 which are more Democratic than the D seats on here) don't make a lot of sense.

Pretty good, but a little too friendly to the Rs at this juncture. I'd swap in Chabot and Garcia for IL-17  and Lee.

[wesmoorenerd]

https://twitter.com/joshkraushaar/status/1555535600966582279?s=21&t=7LpzdkAli_YrqUIgtzFPtA

Six new House rating changes from @CookPolitical: three move towards Ds, three move towards Rs.

Biggest eye-catcher: Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon moves to toss-up status, with internal polls showing him tied or trailing.


Makes you wonder, NE-1 result suggests Dobbs impact real. If Bacon is in trouble, how much is the rest of the House GOP path built on a shaky foundation? If Dems pick up NE-2, MI-3, OH-1, CA-27 (maybe 22,45) it would offset some of the GOPs easy pickups. Also wonder if NJ-7 (similar demographics to NE-2) could move to tossup.

NE-02 move is a good one. I've long thought Bacon has been overrated all cycle. Vargas is the strongest candidate he's faced in a while, and it's easy to forget that there's only four more Republican incumbents running in less friendly districts (Flores, Valadao, Garcia, Chabot).

[wesmoorenerd]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1557458057390694405

As gracile can attest, I'm not huge on this move. A cash deficit is impermanent. The fact is, Marlinga has a stronger brand than James here and that could make this race competitive. Lean R was a fair rating.

[wesmoorenerd]

Michigan being higher than CO is.... certainly something

Agreed. For what it's worth, I think Joe O'Dea has serious Youngkin potential this November.

It ain't worth much.

[wesmoorenerd]

The CO change is pure Cook brain. This is Supposed To Be A Good Cycle For The Republicans so any change in the Democrats' favor, no matter how justified, must be balanced out by a change in the Republicans' favor, no matter how unjustified.

[wesmoorenerd]

Inside Elections further cementing itself as the weakest of the three prognosticators by a wide margin. Honestly, as bad as Cook and Sabato can be sometimes, IE is light years behind the curve.

[wesmoorenerd]

A collection of internal Democratic polls conducted in August in a dozen battleground seats, which were reviewed by POLITICO, showed Democratic candidates running, on average, more than 6 percentage points above Biden’s favorability rating in those districts. On the higher end of the spectrum were Wild and Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.).

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/06/gop-inside-track-to-house-majority-dems-00054821

And I got mocked for saying Susan Wild was a strong incumbent!

She’s not.

She's outrunning Biden by the most among many battleground Dems, so how is she not? Where's the proof she's not?

middle aged white woman = weak candidate, according to the atlas experts

[wesmoorenerd]

A collection of internal Democratic polls conducted in August in a dozen battleground seats, which were reviewed by POLITICO, showed Democratic candidates running, on average, more than 6 percentage points above Biden’s favorability rating in those districts. On the higher end of the spectrum were Wild and Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.).

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/06/gop-inside-track-to-house-majority-dems-00054821

And I got mocked for saying Susan Wild was a strong incumbent!

She’s not.

She's outrunning Biden by the most among many battleground Dems, so how is she not? Where's the proof she's not?

middle aged white woman = weak candidate, according to the atlas experts

Funny, Scheller is also a middle aged white woman. I have Peltola and Kaptur winning Trump districts too in my November prediction so nice try.

famous white woman mary peltola

[wesmoorenerd]

https://twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1578453206517940224?cxt=HHwWgICg0YG15e...

Most of these I buy, but I still think Garcia goes down this year.