DEMOCR ATS STILL FACE BIG HILL TO REGAIN MAJORITY IN HOUSE

congressional district (going by the percentage of those with a college degree). It broke for Hillary Clinton by 16 percentage points last November. There isn’t a strong challenger in John Katko’s upstate New York district (the 24th), where Barack Obama won easily in 2012 and where Clinton won in 2016. These races remain rated as “likely Republican” by the Cook Political Report.

Democrats have notably failed to recruit a strong challenger against the Republican freshman Brian Fitzpatrick, who represents the blue-collar suburbs northeast of Philadelphia. Frank Lobiondo, a moderate 71-yearold, 12-term congressman from an Obama district in southern New Jersey, is the sort of candidate whom the Democrats might reasonably hope to pressure into retirement with a strong challenge. But he won’t be feeling much pressure so long as his top opponent has a mere $9,486 in the bank.

Overall, there are 11 districts (out of the 50 districts that ought to be most competitive, by our estimates) where the Democrats don’t have a candidate who raised $100,000. On average, those 11 districts are much less educated than the battlegrounds as a whole; just 31 percent of whites over age 25 have a degree. In comparison, whites with a degree represent 41 percent of the population in the other 39 districts that ought to be most competitive.

There is still plenty of time for Democrats to find candidates in those districts. And even in working-class areas, Democrats are doing far better at recruiting and fundraising than in recent years. They have attracted strong recruits in many competitive working-class districts, like Maine’s 2nd, New York’s 21st and Illinois’ 12th. Democrats even have well-funded challenges in a few working-class districts that weren’t bound to be competitive at all, like Paul Ryan’s district in Wisconsin, Kentucky’s 6th or Kansas’ 2nd. And working-class districts are often in less expensive media markets, making it easier for Democrats to make a late bid.

The Democrats will clearly have the money to compete in expensive markets like Los Angeles and New York. They’ve posted staggering fundraising totals in many of the best-educated districts, often outpacing longtime Republican congressman. If anything, Democrats might have the opposite problem in these well-educated areas: too many viable candidates.

In Orange County, Calif., Democratic challengers have outraised Republican incumbents by a 2-to-1 ratio this year, even though the Republicans got a head start before their Democratic challengers entered the race. But there’s a catch: There are 15 Democratic candidates who have raised more than $100,000 in just those four districts, setting up a series of costly primaries that might ultimately prove detrimental to the party’s general election chances. There’s a similar pattern in well-educated districts across the county.

The abundance of Democratic challengers in these well-educated districts is a reflection of huge enthusiasm. In these areas, there’s no shortage of well-todo and well-connected political novices looking to “do something” about Trump’s presidency, just as there was no shortage of well-educated Democrats lining up for the Jan. 21 Women’s March or donating to the campaign of Jon Ossoff in Georgia’s 6th District special election.

Few established politicians are standing in the way of these political newcomers. The Democratic bench is quite weak in these traditionally Republican and often heavily gerrymandered areas. There are no obvious contenders strong enough to clear the field.

The enthusiasm among well-educated Democrats and the relative lack of success recruiting established politicians in working-class areas has occasionally led to an odd mismatch: affluent, liberal types running in working-class districts. Take Josh Harder, who worked for a San Francisco venture capital firm but is now running in California’s typically competitive 10th district in the Central Valley, or ex-obama administration officials like Elissa Slotkin, Lauren Baer and Andy Kim, who are running in middle-class districts in Michigan, Florida and New Jersey.

The good news for Democrats is that they don’t need perfect recruits to pull off big wins if it’s a so-called wave election year. Ossoff was a true political novice and still came close to winning, and the 2006 and 2010 wave midterm elections are full of examples of fairly weak recruits who pulled off important victories.

But the GOP starts from a position of strength: the Democrats’ path to a House majority is much more challenging than it was in 2006 or than it was for the Republicans in 2010. They can’t afford to leave many districts like New York’s 24th or California’s 21st off the board.