Once-safe GOP House seats put in play by Democrats
Well-motivated challengers have incumbents worried
SALISBURY, N.C. – Republican Rep. Ted Budd opened the calendar on his iPhone during a campaign day last week to reveal a jampacked schedule – wake up at 4:55 a.m., breakfast with veterans, an opioid discussion in another county – and yet he was worried that it wasn’t enough.
“I’m getting nervous because of the white space I see,” said Budd, pointing to the few blank lines on the schedule.
Across the country, dozens of House Republicans who previously coasted to victory are for the first time facing credible and well-financed Democratic opponents – and working furiously to find a strategy for survival.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., delivered a stern message last month to the rank and file after a surprisingly narrow special election win in a reliably Republican Arizona district: Wake up, because Democrats are motivated.
Many newly vulnerable Republicans represent suburban communities such as Budd’s, where Donald Trump won in 2016 but has since lost popularity.
Budd is one of two GOP incumbents in this region of North Carolina being targeted by Democrats, with pollsters and independent handicappers saying the races could be competitive.
The two GOP incumbents have adopted slightly different strategies for self-preservation, largely out of necessity.
While Budd has been able to focus on the general election by talking at times about how he has bucked his party, Rep. Robert Pittenger has been grappling with a bitter Republican challenge ahead of Tuesday’s primary election here that has led him to move to the right in ways likely to complicate his message to voters in the fall.
Democrats had largely ignored the districts in this decade after Republicans redrew the state’s congressional boundaries to their advantage. Budd’s district, which stretches from Democratic-leaning Greensboro to the northern suburbs of Charlotte, backed Trump by 9 percentage points. Voters in Pittenger’s district, which rolls from Charlotte nearly to the state’s coastline, supported the president by almost 12 points.
In 2016, Budd and Pittenger survived primaries, then sailed to victory over Democrats who raised less than $100,000. This election, Democrats recruited Kathy Manning, a philanthropist and longtime party donor who has raised $1.3 million to Budd’s $832,690. Dan McCready, a business executive and veteran, has raised $1.9 million to Pittenger’s $1.1 million.
Recent moves show that Republicans see these two districts as emblematic of their larger problems.
In April, Vice President Mike Pence shared a stage with Pittenger during a visit to Charlotte, North Carolina. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with House GOP leadership, has added Budd’s race to its $50 million midterm ad buy.
Budd and Pittenger are running as allies of the president but not counting on him or the national party to come up with a campaign message.
Budd, 46, who’s backed by the conservative Club for Growth and won his first term in 2016 by promising to “turn Washington, D.C., inside out,” is pitching himself as a hard-working outsider.
He is also talking about the benefits of bipartisanship, though he is a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which often pressures the party’s leadership to maintain ideological purity on many issues.
At one point last week, he sought to assure a shelter operator seeking more money to help victims of human trafficking by saying: “Ninety-four percent of the bills that are passed through the House are bipartisan. That doesn’t get reported a lot because it’s not exciting.”
Manning, who had been recruited before and declined, described herself as a worried member of the community. “This is a district that’s been very badly hurt, and since Trump’s been elected, it hasn’t seen dramatic improvement,” she said after addressing voters at a barbecue-sandwich meetand-greet.
Budd, meanwhile, describes a country on the right track, but far from healed.
At a meeting with school superintendents, Budd, a gun store owner, nodded as law enforcement officials talked about “hardening” schools, but he did not mention arming teachers – a position advanced by the National Rifle Association, which supports him.
At the veterans’ breakfast, Budd promoted legislation to help those who served and suggested using health providers outside the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide some care, a shift toward privatization favored by conservatives.
Budd said he’d also built support with voters by breaking with his party’s leadership -– when he could. He pointed to the $1.3 trillion spending bill, known in congressional parlance as the “omnibus.”