Trygve Olson-- sounds like a Norwegian name-- is a national Republican strategist who is from Wisconsin’s 10th senatorial district, the site of the GOP donnybrook Tuesday. "If Republicans are losing districts like this," he said after the counting was done, "they should be in complete panic mode about the tsunami heading their way." In fact, Tuesday saw 4 special elections in very red districts that had gone to Trump in 2016 by very wide margins. Although just one flipped from red to blue, all 4 swung heavily towards the Democrats. These were the results:
• WI- SD-10-- a 26 point swing towards the Democrat• WI- AD-58-- a 25 point swing towards the Democrat• SC- HD-99-- a 15 point swing towards the Democrat• IA- HD-6-- an 18 point swing towards the Democrat
So that's an unweighted average swing of about 20 points towards the Democrat in very Republican territory. Veteran GOP strategist Curt Anderson told The Hill that he's "not advising my clients to panic, but if it’s a choice between panic and complacency, I suggest panic. Every Republican candidate should approach this election as if we start 5 points behind." Really? 5 points? That sounds delusional. What will it look like if what happened on Tuesday happens on a federal level in November? The simple answer: the GOP will be wiped out. Let's take, for example, the 15 races where Blue America has endorsed candidates (or is in the final stage of vetting candidates) in districts held by a Republican incumbents that Trump won. So not included are the DCCC theory-of-the-cycle districts where Hillary beat Trump. Below you will see by what percentage Trump won the district.
• IA-03 (Austin Frerick)- 4 points• KS-04 (James Thompson)- 27 points• IL-13 (David Gill)- 6 points• PA-16 (Jess King)- 7 points• IN-09 (Dan Canon)- 27 points• NC-05 (Jenny Marshall)- 18 points• MI-06 (Paul Clements)- 8 points• TX-21 (Derrick Crowe)- 10 points• NY-02 (DuWayne Gregory)- 9 points• ME-02 (Jared Golden)- 10 points• OK-05 (Tom Guild)- 13 points• WI-01 (Randy Bryce)- 10 points• WA-05 (Lisa Brown)- 13 points• NE-02 (Kara Eastman)- 2 points• IA-04 (J.D. Scholten)- 23 points
As you can see, a 20 point nationwide swing would sweep away 12 of the 15 Republican incumbents in the Trump districts. That means the hardest work is needed in KS-04, IN-09 and IA-04. Be my guest, please.
National GOP leaders met at the Salamander Resort in Virginia over the weekend to discuss the 2018 campaign.Sources familiar with the meeting say leaders left the resort acknowledging they would lose House seats in November.Still, many were hopeful that economic growth and the tax cuts that haven’t yet made their way to voters’ paychecks will boost the party between now and Election Day.House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), the fourth-ranking Republican in leadership, said the discussion at the retreat reinforced how important it will be for Republicans to “win hearts and minds on the tax package.”“People in this country need to realize what is driving economic growth and job creation and opportunity,” she said.Democrats need to flip 24 seats to gain control of the House.McMorris Rodgers told The Hill she believes Republicans would maintain their majority in the House through 2018.
McMorris Rodgers is wrong-- and not just about the delusional assertion that the GOP is going to hold onto the majority in Congress. It's not likely she'll even be in Congress herself in 2019. As we saw on Tuesday, it's very likely that Eastern Washington voters are going to replace her with the state's former House Majority Leader, Lisa Brown. And Brown is doing all she can to reach out to those voters as directly as she can. Today she told us that "although Paul Ryan’s SuperPAC is opening a field office in Spokane, threatening to flood Eastern Washington with dark money, our supporters are countering it with thousands of contributions. $27 is still a popular amount, but they range on a daily basis from $5 to $500, because people understand how important it is to defeat entrenched leaders who have 'gone Beltway.' More significantly, we have over a thousand people attending training academies, clamoring to register voters and knock on doors from Chewelah to Walla Walla. This is how you take back your country."