Democrat incumbents protect their war chests
Gird for any challengers like Ocasio-cortez in ’18
WASHINGTON — Somewhere out there, the next Alexandria Ocasio-cortez lurks. So wary House Democrats are amassing campaign war chests to scare off progressive upstarts from challenging them in primaries — or trounce them if they try.
A look at 41 incumbent House Democrats who face potential 2020 party primary opponents shows 16 have already stockpiled over $1 million in campaign funds. The figures from Federal Election Commission reports for the first six months of this year show that 20 raised over $500,000 during that period alone.
That’s not stopping challengers from targeting powerful committee chairmen and other well-financed incumbents, though the hurdles they face are clear.
So far only four Democratic challengers in these races have at least $100,000 socked away. The most is $352,000 by business consultant Marie Newman, who’s waging a primary rematch against Illinois Rep. Dan Lipinski, one of Congress’ most conservative Democrats. He has double her cash on hand, though she’s outraised him so far this year.
“If you don’t have the money to fight an air war, you fight a ground war,” Monica Klein, a New York consultant who works with progressive Democrats, said of challengers who often lack money for TV commercials. “You try to out-organize your opponent and have those conversations at the doors, on the phone, face to face.”
The list of Democratic incumbents facing primary challenges will grow considerably, but most of those races won’t be truly competitive.
Ocasio-cortez rocketed to influence and celebrity and is now a New York congresswoman after unexpectedly toppling 10-term veteran Rep. Joseph Crowley in their 2018 Democratic primary.
Upsets like Ocasio-cortez’s are rare. She, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-mass., and two Republicans were the only primary challengers to oust any of the 376 House incumbents seeking re-election last year, meaning 99 percent of incumbents were renominated.
Since World War II no more than 5 percent of incumbents have lost primaries, which happened in 1992.
Even so, leading Democrats are urging lawmakers to be aggressive fundraisers.
Rep. Richard Neal, D-mass., chairs the House Ways and Means Committee and has a liberal voting record. He’s banked nearly $4 million but 30-year-old Alex Morse, the mayor of Holyoke, recently announced his candidacy anyway, asserting that Neal isn’t doing enough.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler of New York, a leader of Democratic investigations into President Donald Trump, faces opponents including Lindsey Boylan, 35, a former state economic development official. Boylan has already banked $240,000, impressive for a challenger but a quarter of Nadler’s cache.
Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has $187,000 cash on hand, a modest amount for his Bronx and Westchester County district. The 16-term veteran could face a significant challenge in his racially mixed area from Jamaal Bowman, a black educator.
Bowman, Morse and several others are backed by Justice Democrats, the progressive group that recruited Ocasio-cortez to run last year.