There have been numerous updates regarding the House, Senate, Gubernatorial, and Presidential races happening in the past few weeks worth discussing. In the House, Democrats are attempting to search for straws in pinning down Republican House representatives leading to some reaching in their descriptions. Also, the DCCC’s expenditures in Democratic seats is eclipsing Republican seats despite more pick-up opportunities suggesting weakness nationally. In the Senate, the situation for the Democrats across the country is worsening as competitive races that weren’t supposed to be competitive are dragging resources away from target seats and into familiar territory. In the gubernatorial races, some eyes are migrating to 2025 as the 2024 races continue to heat up. In the presidential race, new polls from Iowa and New Mexico offer warning signs to the Biden camp ahead of November. Let’s get to the stories.
Starting off with the House of Representatives, it’s evident that House Democrats are not having the electoral battleground they thought they would have at this point given the weakness of several Democratic challengers. When Congressman Anthony D’Esposito’s (R-NY) congressional seat is still rated a Toss-Up despite being a D+5 seat nationally, that suggests more competitive seats are even tougher climbs for Democratic challengers to compete for nationally.
This has led to some sensationalist headlines such as state representative Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA) being accused of lying about his age on Tinder when he was 37 saying he was 29. While Mackenzie is still wrong for having lied about the age on Tinder, assuming the story is true, he was a consenting adult trying to get with another consenting adult (AFAIK) where the narrative of the headline is hoping that some invocations of potentially damaging material happen. In the age of catfishing on the internet, I’m more concerned about the more serious lies told on Tinder and dating apps other than slightly older millennial is pretending to be a late 20s millennial. This comes as some polling shows Republicans in Biden districts pulling off double-digit leads such as Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) with 50% to 39% over his main competition.
This also leads into the spending spree by the DCCC into Democratic-leaning districts than aggressively targeting Republican districts that are Biden-favorable areas. Only 16% of the latest Democratic ad spending is being placed in Republican districts versus attempting to shore up their own districts. While this should not be taken as a sign to get overly cocky (2022 Republican Party, anyone?), the DCCC is usually known for playing offense even to the point of mangling Republican primaries into unsalvageable messes that lose in the general election. If a $16 million ad buy is almost entirely to shore up a defensive wall instead of break through the more tenebrous Republican congressional delegation, one has to ask what they are seeing that the rest of us aren’t.
Moving onto the Senate, the issue that the DSCC faces isn’t an abundance of races they can contest, but a shortage of them. With Florida and Texas being longshot races that have Democrats pessimistic about making gains this cycle, most of the focus has been on the marginally competitive ten battleground Senate seats on the Democratic side. The list of contested seats has even expanded to serious contests in Maryland and New Jersey where different circumstances or candidates have made targeting the seats alluring.
The news for Democrats has gotten worse as time has passed as Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), the party nominee in Maryland, is facing questions about improperly using state funds for her Senate campaign. The recent indictment of Democratic party boss George Norcross (D-NJ) has some state Democrats worried about the negative baggage surrounding Sen. Bob Menendez (I-NJ) who is contesting the ballot in New Jersey as an Independent. Senate polling in Minnesota has Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) under 50% against Matt Fraser (R-MN) in the general election, a result that could happen if Royce White fails to coalesce the Minnesota GOP around his candidacy. The most surprising news, however, comes from New Mexico where Democratic-aligned polling from Public Policy Polling has incumbent Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) potentially facing a tough challenge from Nella Domenici (R-NM), the daughter of former Senator Pete Domenici. He only leads her 47% to 40%, something that could narrow more when accounting for the
The main action has been focused in the gubernatorial and lieutenant gubernatorial news with Indiana Republicans starting off the week with the upset nomination of Micah Beckwith (R-IN) to be Mike Braun’s gubernatorial running mate. This comes with the expectation that if Beckwith is as right-leaning as some prognosticators have made him out to be, he could be symbolic of a Janice McGeachin (R-ID) style candidate always feuding with Braun in an effort to climb the ladder. For those that will remember, McGeachin would directly challenge Little in the Republican primary in 2022 only to lose that contest. If Beckwith becomes a problem as Lieutenant Governor, one could imagine a similar LG turning on Governor situation happening in 2028 as witnessed by Mike Braun’s lack of excitement in the Indiana Republican Party’s picture of their statewide candidates.
New polling from the New Jersey gubernatorial race shows that the state GOP appears to be leaning toward Jack Ciatterelli (R-NJ) with 44% of the primary vote compared to 11% for Bill Spadea(R-NJ), 3% for Jon Bramnick (R-NJ), and 2% for Ed Durr according to the frontrunner’s campaign. While this is an internal poll and has to be taken with some skepticism, Ciatterelli should retain the most name recognition from his 2021 near-upset of Gov. Phil Murphy. This also shows how that almost rattled the New Jersey political universe in retrospect when thinking about what the proxy battle between Tammy Murphy and Andy Kim meant for the state’s politics. The final point from the poll is that the moderate Republicans would have to be dragged to support Jon Bramnick at the polls when in reality he is the most crossover appealing Republican in the entire field. Oh well, this is becoming typical.
There was also a surprise domain name registration that could mean something or nothing at all coming from a “Heather Somers”. Heather Somers, if the registration is coming from the person that it could refer to, was a former state legislator in Connecticut on the Republican side and is one of the names being watched with Erin Stewart of New Britain mayoral fame and 2018/2022 gubernatorial nominee Bob Stefanowski for the 2026 gubernatorial race. We’ll see what happens with this registration moving forward.
Concluding on the presidential race, there were some numbers that jumped out from the state of Iowa that should give alarm to the Biden campaign if the same type of voters come out in force in other neighboring states. According to the Des Moines Register poll from Ann Selzer, the most recent findings from the polling suggest that Trump holds 50% of the state’s vote to Biden’s 31%. This 20% gap extrapolated to nearby states could mean overperformances in the rural areas in places such as Michigan, Minnesota, etc., where the electoral votes of those states could be essential in breaking the “blue wall” and establishing a clear pathway to the presidency for Donald Trump. Another poll from light-blue New Mexico has the presidential race at a close contest in that state as well. Overall, while the national polls are always fickle, the state-by-state polls, which are arguably more important in parceling out electoral votes, are favoring Donald Trump by large margins.
Heinrich leads U.S. Senate race as general election campaigning starts – NM Political Report
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2024 United States presidential election in Iowa – Wikipedia
2024 United States presidential election in New Mexico – Wikipedia
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