Ruben Kihuen and Dean Heller-- 2018 Senate opponents?There really was only one feasible way to stop Betsy DeVos from being confirmed-- Nevada. Nevada is a swing state tilting Blue. Obama won it against McCain in 2008 (55-43%) and against Romney in 2012 (52-46%). This past November, Hillary took the state's 6 electoral votes against Triump 537,753 (47.9%) to 511,319 (45.5%). On the same day, Nevada elected Democrat Catherine Cortez Mastro over Republican Joe Heck 520,658 (47.1%) to 494,427 (44.7%) and ended the Republican hold on two of the state's 4 congressional districts by electing progressive Ruben Kihuen and centrist Jacky Rosen in the Las Vegas area. How are they doin'? Take a look at these two charts from ProgressivePunch that examine lifetime crucial vote scores. As you can see, Ruben is tied for #1 (in the entire Congress) with another progressive champion, Pramila Jayapal. Also note though, that Jayapal's district is solidly blue, while Kihuen's is more of a swing district. He beat a Republican incumbent, Cresent Hardy, to win the seat. The second chart shows the records of 4 very mediocre centrist politicians with crap scores tucked neatly between two of the most right-wing Blue Dogs in Congress, Jim Costa (CA) and Collin Peterson (MN). please click on these two charts to read themJacky Rosen is in the middle of that ugliness-- with the kind of voting record that Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy drool over-- Democrats who vote with the GOP more than with their own party on crucial issues. Ruben scores an A; Jacky an F. Why bring this up so soon? Let's go back to that DeVos confirmation vote for a moment. Nevada's Republican senator Dean Heller tries painting himself as some kind of a mainstream conservative, not a radical or extremist like most of his GOP Senate colleagues. But when it came to saving public education-- despite thousands of pleas from Nevadans-- he didn't follow Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski across the aisle; he voted by rote with the GOP to confirm a profoundly unqualified and dangerous nominee. And his seat is up in 2018.The Democrats don't have a very deep bench in Nevada and there has already been speculation that the party might draft either Ruben or Jacky. "Either?" The stand-out progressive with the best record in the House for resisting Trumpism or the mediocre backbencher who has already voted more with the GOP than with the Democratic Party. There is one sure way the Democrats can guarantee another 6 year term for Dean Heller-- nominee Jacky Ruben as his opponent.Yesterday evening the Senate voted to confirm the execrable racist, Jeff Sessions, as Attorney General. Again, Dean Heller stuck with his party and voted for the racist to become Attorney General. It didn't take long for Ruben Kihuen let Nevadans know he doesn't agree. "The confirmation of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General," he told the Nevada media, " is a troubling development for the progress made by our nation's justice system. His history of racism, opposition to voting rights and immigration reform makes him an unacceptable choice as Attorney General. History will not look kindly on Senate Republicans who continue to rubber stamp Ppresident Trump's controversial and unqualified cabinet nominees, even going so far as to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren's opposition on the Senate floor. They should be ashamed of themselves." And by "they," he no doubt had Dean Heller foremost in mind.Although Beto O'Rourke, the popular Democratic congressman from El Paso, is likely to take on Ted Cruz, most of the 2018 Senate contests will involve red-state Democrats defending their seats-- unattractive, anti-progressive Democratic incumbents like Joe Manchin (WV), Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Claire McCaskill (MO), Jon Tester (MT)... If Trump turns out to be the disaster he appears to be so far-- and if the Republican Congress continues to enable his crazy agenda-- there are two flippable Republican-held Senate seats up for grabs, Jeff Flake's in Arizona (very tough) and Dean Heller (tough but feasible with a good candidate, i.e.- not Jackie Rosen or some other timid, tepid Republican-lite hack).As we've been saying, though, the real battle to stop Trump in 2018 is for the House. The Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats to oust Ryan and his horrible chairmen from power. And the Democrats can do it, as we've been explaining.We've also talked about defending some seats where Democrats were elected where the voters also went for Trump. Several good Democrats are sitting in these Trump districts-- like Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01), Matt Cartwright (PA-17), Rick Nolan (MN-08) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02)-- and these seats will need to be vigorously defended from the Trumpists. Most of the Trump districts Dems, though are just worthless Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party and don't merit any help at all. Congressional Democrats are better off without garbage incumbents like Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05), Ron Kind (WI-03), Tom O'Halleran (AZ-01), Cheri Bustos (IL-17), Collin Peterson (MN-07), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18) and... Jacky Rosen (NV-03).This week the NRCC has released their first list of seats they plan to target in 2018. They have 36 on their list, which is kind of funny (although I have admit that the DCCC's first list was kind of funny too, including absurd "targets" like Martha Roby, French Hill, Richard Hudson and Alex Mooney, whose seat Trump just won 65.8-29.4%). The same way the DCCC is focussing on Republican-held seats that Hillary won, the NRCC is focussing on Democratic-held seats that Trump won, the ones we refer to as Trump district Dems. "That segment of the list," wrote Alex Isenstadt, "is heavy on blue-collar districts in the Midwest, which Republicans believe will be especially fertile political territory in the Trump era. It includes two Democrats who were not heavily targeted by the GOP in 2016: Reps. Dave Loebsack, a veteran incumbent from southeastern Iowa, and Ron Kind, who is from west central Wisconsin and ran unopposed in 2016 while Trump carried his seat by more than 4 percentage points." These are the 36 seats the NRCC is targeting:
• AZ-1- Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog)• AZ-09- Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog)• CA-07- Ami Bera (New Dem)- safe• CA-24- Salud Carbajal (New Dem)- safe• CA-36- Raul Ruiz- safe• CA-52- Scott Peters (New Dem)- safe• CO-07- Ed Perlmutter (New Dem)- safe• CT-02- Joe Courtney (New Dem)- safe• CT-05- Elizabeth Esty (New Dem)- safe• FL-07- Stephanie Murphie (Blue Dog)- safe• FL-13- Charlie Crist- safe• IA-02- Dave Loebsack- safe• IL-17- Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog)- safe• MA-09- Bill Keating- safe• MD-06- John Delaney (New Dem)- safe• MI-05- Dan Kildee- safe• MI-09- Sander Levin- safe• MN-01- Tim Walz• MN-07- Collin Peterson (Blue Dog)• MN-08- Rick Nolan• NH-01- Carol Shea-Porter• NH-02- Ann Kuster (New Dem)- safe• NJ-05- Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog)• NM-01- open• NM-03- Ben Ray Lujan- safe• NV-03- Jacky Rosen• NV-04- Ruben Kihuen- safe• NY-03- Tom Suozzi- safe• NY-18- Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem)- safe• OH-13- Tim Ryan- safe• OR-04- Pete DeFazio- safe• OR-o5- Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog)- safe• PA-17- Matt Cartwright- safe• WA-06- Derek Kilmer (New Dem)- safe• WA-10- Denny Heck (New Dem)- safe• WI-03- Ron Kind (New Dem)- safe