Better yet for Democrats, if the veteran Republican Steve Chabot loses his redrawn Cincinnati district to a Democratic city councilman, Greg Landsman, Democrats will have actually drawn blood.
A far-right problem for Republican leadership?
Democrats have warned over and over that the far right of the G.O.P. presents a clear and present danger to American democracy. But in their quest to maintain control of the House, Democrats cheered on — and in some cases financed — outlandish candidates, convinced they could defeat them in November.
November is here, and that risky bet is looking riskier than ever. In North Carolina, watch the open seat in the state’s northeast, where Sandy Smith, who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is hoping to take the seat of the retiring Democratic representative G.K. Butterfield.
In Western Michigan, the House Democrats’ official campaign arm helped a former Trump administration official who has peddled conspiracy theories, John Gibbs, defeat Representative Peter Meijer in the Republican primary. Democrats still think they can take the seat around Grand Rapids, but polling suggests it will be close.
And in Northwest Ohio, the Democratic representative Marcy Kaptur is hoping to become the longest-serving female member of Congress, breaking Barbara Mikulski’s combined House and Senate record. But to do it, she will have to defeat J.R. Majewski, who has dabbled in QAnon conspiracies, was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and has made violent imagery a mainstay of his campaign.
The final results will take a long time.
It is likely, even probable, that control of Congress will be determined on election night, possibly at a reasonable hour. But learning how big the majority will be will have to wait for West Coast returns, which come in slowly and late. A nonpartisan redistricting commission in California, coupled with the shifting winds of the national political environment, has put nine seats on the battlefield, five of them pure tossups. Four of those contested California seats are held by Republicans, offering Democrats the rare chance to recoup some early-evening losses.
Those are the bright spots for the party. In Nevada, all three of the Democrats’ seats are at risk. Democrats could lose two seats in Arizona. And in once bright-blue Oregon, three Democratic seats are teetering, with yet another tossup in the suburbs of Seattle in adjacent Washington State.
Source: NY Times
