House Democrats, who have provided key votes to keep the government open and on other big issues even as a fractured Republican majority controlled the chamber, are feeling increasingly confident they’ll win back the majority in November.
And at 30 days before Election Day, a new Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee strategy memo obtained by HuffPost gives them more reasons to feel that way, including seeing an edge for the average Democratic candidate over their opponent in competitive district races’ polling.
“Democrats in Frontline and In Play districts are ahead by two points in the named head-to-head against their Republican opponent,” according to the two-page memo, referring to a group of 67 expected-to-be-close races the DCCC is watching closely.
“House Democrats have the candidates, message, money, and mobilization efforts to connect with voters, and the DCCC is confident that we will build on this momentum in the closing weeks to win in November,” the memo said.
Though each party likes to tout its chances as the days to Nov. 5 dwindle, the memo added to some other good news for Democrats. The respected Cook Political Report said Friday it was shifting its assessments of five House races — two in Iowa and one each in Indiana, Illinois and Montana — toward Democrats.
The current makeup of the House includes 220 Republicans, which would leave the party only a two-vote cushion in a full 435-member chamber. The average swing in House elections is well above three seats, but in which direction it will go in November is unclear. House Republicans have largely pinned their hopes on former President Donald Trump winning the White House again and pulling them over the finish line to keep control of the House.
But the DCCC memo found House Republicans on their own have problems. It said polling in those 67 competitive races showed GOP candidates’ favorability ratings on average are underwater by 6 percentage points. And it said Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for a Republican presidency that was compiled by the conservative Heritage Foundation and written by several Trump White House alumni, continued to weigh on GOP candidates, with 62% of independent voters viewing it unfavorably.
“We’re going to make sure voters remember how House Republicans wasted their two years with nothing but chaos and dysfunction.”
– DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.)
The memo also said door-knocking, the meat-and-potatoes of retail campaigning, had risen sharply for House Democrats in a sign of grassroots enthusiasm.
“In September, volunteers knocked on 696,634 doors, nearly doubling the number of doors knocked in August,” the memo said. The August number was well above the number of doors volunteers knocked on earlier in the summer before Vice President Kamala Harris was named the White House nominee.
The DCCC has also continued to hold a fundraising edge over its counterpart, the Republican National Campaign Committee.
With such a thin House majority to start with and a GOP conference often riven by ideological differences between hard-core Trump-supporting Make America Great Again members and more moderate representatives from suburban districts, the Republicans have had a hard time advancing their priorities.
But they have stopped Democrats from passing many of their ideas, resulting in a Congress historically short on lawmaking and long on intramural infighting and chaos.
“As more voters tune into the election in the coming weeks, they are going to hear from us about how Republicans, despite holding the majority, have done nothing to deliver for working families. We’re going to make sure voters remember how House Republicans wasted their two years with nothing but chaos and dysfunction,” DCCC Chair SuzanDelBene (D-Wash.) told reporters Friday.
