‘No district is off the table’: Rancor over health vote could put House in play
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — In a suburban Chicago district, Kelly Mazeski, a breast cancer survivor, used the day of the vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act to announce her House candidacy, vowing to make Republican Rep. Peter Roskam pay for his vote “to make Americans pay more and get less for their health care.”
In western New York, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul has stirred talk of a congressional race with her slashing criticism of Rep. Chris Collins, who rallied fellow Republicans to vote for the health measure, then conceded in a national television interview that he had not read the bill.
And in suburban Philadelphia, Chrissy Houlahan, an Air Force veteran challenging Rep. Ryan A. Costello, R-Pa., said she would make Mr. Costello’s decision to support the bill in committee, before opposing it on the floor, a central issue.
It is far too early to determine whether 2018 will bring a political wave, but the House’s approval of a deeply unpopular health care bill Thursday has handed Democrats a potent line of attack for the midterm elections. While Republicans believe that fulfilling a seven-year promise on health care will energize their base next year, Democrats are anticipating a backlash that may put in jeopardy a Republican House majority that once seemed unshakable.
Democrats are recruiting challengers aggressively, even in conservative-leaning districts, importuning an eclectic group of could-be candidates that includes a Minnesota gelato baron, a former candidate for governor of Kansas and the mayor of Syracuse, N.Y.
Democrats need 24 seats to recapture the House majority, and they believe the most straightforward path back to power is through the 23 Republican districts won by Hillary Clinton in November, as well as the dozens more where President Donald Trump remains deeply unliked. Precisely which of these districts to pursue came into sharper focus with Thursday’s vote.
“No district is off the table,” said Rep. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, the House Democratic campaign chairman, who vowed that Democrats would cast the widest possible net.
All seven of the House Republicans from California who represent districts that Mr. Trump lost voted for the bill, a collective act of political audacity in a state simmering with anger toward the president. While Ms. Clinton won Rep. Carlos Curbelo’s Miami district by 16 percentage points, he also voted yes. And other Republican lawmakers who represent districts that decisively rejected Mr. Trump, like Mr. Roskam and Martha E. McSally of Arizona, supported the measure.
All told, 80 House Republicans from districts Mr. Trump carried by 55 percent or less voted for the health law’s repeal. “Any Republican member of Congress in a seat that the president won by less than 10 points who isn’t concerned needs to be concerned,” said Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster.
Republican leaders felt squeezed between the rising popularity of the Affordable Care Act and the demands of their conservative base. In the end, they wagered that it was riskier to not fulfill their pledge to repeal the law — including some widely unpopular provisions like the mandate to obtain coverage — than to upend the medical care of millions of their constituents.
“We have to keep our own base excited because off-year elections are about the base,” said Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, who oversees the House campaign arm. “We need to show them accomplishments.”
Republicans have their own opportunities in a scrambled House map, and they are aggressively recruiting in districts held by Democrats that Mr. Trump won or narrowly lost, including those represented by Rick Nolan and Tim Walz in Minnesota, Matt Cartwright in Pennsylvania and Jacky Rosen in Nevada. And many of the Republicans facing arduous re-election campaigns are among the most battletested.
Still, the Republican Party faces daunting challenges in 2018. Midterm elections are traditionally difficult for a party with full control of the government, even more so when it is bearing the burden of an unpopular or polarizing president. And Mr. Trump is struggling with disapproval ratings unseen this early in the administration of any other modern U.S. president.
When a party wields its power to enact a controversial agenda — as in the first two years of Bill Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s presidencies — the losses can be immense. As Mr. Obama found out when his party lost 63 seats in 2010, making major changes to the country’s health care system is particularly perilous.
There is also the matter of which party has more energy, and liberal fury toward Mr. Trump is bolstering Democrats. Three liberal websites raised more than $2 million in the 24 hours after the health vote. Republicans have been forced to spend nearly $20 million on special elections trying to save a handful of conservativeleaning House districts.
Democrats are seizing the moment to seek out promising challengers and enticing them with the prospect of a political wave. They have conducted focus groups in suburban areas of the Midwest, and are studying key voting blocs in California and New York.