Yes, "House," so we won't be talking about Ted Cruz, the only Senate arch-villain up for reelection this cycle. Every House seat is up for reelection and a case could be made that's they're all arch-villains since they all enable Trump. Do they? Well, yes... but some enable Trump more than others. FiveThirtyEight has Trump adhesion scores and there are only 5 "perfect" scores. Two of the perps, Troy Balderson (OH-12) and Michael Cloud (TX-27) just got into Congress and their scores aren't based on enough roll calls yet to be relevant; two others-- Ryan Zinke (MT) is now in the cabinet and Jason Chaffetz works for GOP-TV-- don't count either. And that leaves just one pure suck-up: Steve Scalise (LA-01), terrible but not especially an arch-villain as a garden variety far right pile of crap.Next come the 38 Republicans who voted contrary to Trumpanzee just once-- the bill imposing sanctions on Trump amigos Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un. These are all bad guys-- really bad guys-- but are any worth going back in a time machine to strange them in their cribs? Debatable. Locals might feel the Stephen Knight (CA-25) is that bad and it would be hard to argue against them. He's been worse than puke for his whole career, but he was actually worse in the state legislature-- not in terms of voting obviously-- but he's pretty quiet and a total backbencher who just votes terribly. The good news is that he's going to probably lose his seat to conservative Democrat Katie Hill (New Dem). Same for closet case David Young (IA-03) in Des Moines, who is likely to lose to a nothing Democrat, Cindy Axne. Mimi Walters (CA-45) is also in the category and is likely to lose to progressive Katie Porter. David Valadao (CA-21) might lose to T.J. Cox if the wave is big enough and people stick with the DCCC lesser of two evils strategy. Mike Bost (IL-13) could lose to awful Blue Dog Brendan Kelly, I guess. And Michael McCaul (TX-10) might be beaten by Mike Siegel if everything goes right next week. But are there real arch-villains in the truest sense of the term in this 98.9% category? YES!First the good news-- Team Blue could take one out: Chris Collins (NY-27), the first member of Congress to have endorsed Trump, someone so corrupt that he was arrest by the FBI recently, indicted on a myriad of charges based around insider trading and is currently out on bail... and drooping in the polls so badly that his progressive opponent, Nate McMurray has just pulled ahead of him:That leaves three more arch-villains, two of whom do not have serious opponents, murderer and gay-hating closet case Patrick McHenry (NC-10) and Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA-23) and one that maybe, maybe, maybe could be defeated-- the notorious Devin Nunes. It's a very red district and his conservative opponent, Andrew Janz is very weak, but he has raised $8,252,310 (much of it stolen by consultants and now he barely has enough to compete with Nunes-- just $854,154 unhand to Nunes' $4,952,478. BUT... if the wave is strong enough and everything goes right for Janz on election day, there's a teensy weensy chance. 538 rates Janz's shit at 1 in 20 (5.1%), so... don't bet the farm on this one.Here are the states of the race-- according to 538. so not terribly accurate-- for the rest of the 100% arch-villains left in Congress:
• Pete Sessions (TX-32)- 7 in 10 election shot (68.7%)• Liz Cheney (WY)- better than 99 in 100 for reelection (99.9%)• Duncan Hunter (CA-50)- badly called 6 in 7 shot at reelection (85.3%); this more like 50-50.• Virginia Foxx (NC-05)- 19 in 20 reelection chances (95.7%)• Doug Lamborn (CO-05)- 49 in 50 chance at reelection (97.8%)• Greg Gianforte (MT)- 5 in 7 (72.1%); this is also a 50-50 race• STEVE KING (IA-04)- (see below-- and the video up top)• Scott DesJarlais (TN-04)- better than 99 in 100 (99.3%)• Mark Meadows (NC-11)- better than 99 in 100 (99.7%)• Dave Brat (VA-07)- toss-up (terrible Democrat though, Abigail Spanberger, not worth praying for)• Jim Jordan (OH-04)- 19 in 20 for reelection (95.8%)• Mo Brooks (AL-05)- 99 of 100 (99.9%)• Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48)- just 3 in 8 shot of winning (35.8%)• Louie Gohmert (TX-01)- 99 in 100 (99.9%)• Matt Gaetz (FL-01)- 99 in 100 (99.9%)
After Gaetz we're in Blue Dog territory, with Trump-loving faux-Democrats Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Conor Lamb (PA-18), Collin Peterson (MN-07), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09), Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05), Tom Halleran (AZ-01), Stephanie Murphy (FL-07), Jim Costa (CA-16), Sanford Bishop (GA-02), Jacky Rosen (NV-03), Charlie Crist (FL-13), Dan Lipinski (IL-03), Brad Schneider (IL-10), Jim Cooper (TN-05) and Ami Bera (CA-07). The best of all worlds would see them all lose with the Democrats still taking enough red districts to win; but that's not going to happen.Now, in terms of Steve King... this will be one of the big wins of the evening if everything works out. King is a real life genuine Nazi and the Democrat running against him-- with no help from the DCCC, of course-- is J.D. Scholten, a top notch progressive. Because the DCCC opposes Scholten, journalists and pundits give him the short end of the stick. But this is a winnable seat-- very tough, but winnable. Here's the inaccurate 538 forecast:As of October 17, King had raised $736,629 and had $176,312 on hand. Scholten had raised $1,684,427 with $316,359 on hand. On Saturday, when the Washington Post questioned him after the slaughter of Jews in Pittsburgh about all his visits to Nazi rallies in Europe, he defended the revitalized Nazi Party in Austria (the Freedom Party), founded by a former Nazi SS officer. "If they were in America pushing the platform that they push, they would be Republicans." That's correct, although other Republicans were uncomfortable with his statement. A staffer from the office of another Iowa member of Congress told me, on condition of anonymity that "most Republicans in Congress" hope the Democrat wins [and that] Steve [King] moves to Austria full time and gets himself the SS uniform he has always craved." King is a notorious Jew-hater but claims the proof he doesn't hate Jews is that he knows some personally and that he supports Israel.
