“We’re going to talk about all the things that matter to people,” NRCC chairman Tom Emmer said, referring to the reopening of the school and job security. “We will follow a game plan. Hopefully people will make us work under the radar again because they will not believe us. And we can surprise you all again in two years. ‘
And Emmer – who now led the House GOP campaign in his second term – has sidelined the Democrats ‘new strategy of linking the whole party to QAnon:’ My colleague in the street might think that some fringe extremist theory is something people care about, ” he said, referring to Sean Patrick Maloney (DN.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Congress Campaign Committee. But fewer people believe in QAnon, Emmer said, than they think the lunar landing was fake.
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and Republicans are just five seats away from seizing the House, after an unexpectedly successful election cycle, when they garnered a dozen seats. The IDP also controls the redistribution process in several key states, giving them the opportunity to sign favorable new maps. The president’s party has further fueled hopes of a Republican takeover, losing an average of 22 seats in homes over the past forty years.
In an exclusive interview with POLITICO on Tuesday, Emmer mapped out his roadmap for the 2022 terms, which includes a list of 47 Democratic seats to target and a blueprint for messages: Mark Democrats as socialists who kill and stress jobs the commitment of the IDP to reopen schools and the protection of the gas and energy sectors.
But while GOP leaders calmly trust that history is on their side, there are still many landmines ahead – especially with the potential that January 6 could put a lingering black stamp on the party and that the coronavirus is still threatening the political arena. to weaken. .
“Ultimately, I’m optimistic that the Republicans will take over the House and McCarthy will be the speaker,” Rep. Said Patrick McHenry (RN.C.), who is close to the GOP leadership. ‘But there are a number of pitfalls along the way. And the playing field is much more complicated than in 2010. ”
Among the potential X-factors: Some corporate donors have cut off their PAC dollars to Republicans, while Democrats promise to go after vulnerable lawmakers who voted to block the election. Emmer himself voted to validate the results and was also quick to condemn the violence, which could have vaccinated the campaign of some of these attacks, and helped with fundraising. In contrast, the Republican Senate’s campaign came under fire after Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.), The chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, voted to reject the election results from Pennsylvania.
There is also some precedent for voters promoting political stability following a disaster. Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, then-President George W. Bush and the GOP defied historical expectations of taking the seats in the mid-term 2002.
“During the cycle, we can run into unexpected things, just like in a game when someone gets hurt,” said Emmer, a former Minnesota hockey player and coach. “You may need to make small adjustments.”
The NRCC set out three buckets of pick-up opportunities in its initial 2022 memorandum, which was first shared with POLITICO. The first group consists of 29 Democrats which has districts that have hosted the last cycle at congressional and presidential level with strict racing.
These include Democrats from once-Republican suburban areas where the GOP suffered in the Trump era, such as Representatives Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-Ga.) And Andy Kim (DN.J.); legislators in more GOP-friendly white working-class regions, such as representatives Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), Ron Kind (D-Wis.) and Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.); and members in heavy Latino districts along the Texas-Mexico border, where Trump has seen a surprising upsurge, such as representatives Filemón Vela, Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez.
In the second tier of targets are eight Democrats who are less vulnerable but won by less than ten points underperformed Biden in their districts, including representatives Colin Allred (D-Texas), Sharice Davids (D-Can.) and Katie Porter (D-California), who currently hold suburban seats that turned the sharpest against Trump, but some Republicans retain DNA.
The final level consists of ten members whose seats could change significantly during the upcoming redistribution, including representatives Deborah Ross (DN.C.), John Garamendi (D-California), Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) And Maloney in New York’s Hudson Valley.
If Republicans of the House can knock Democrats out of power – something that can only happen through redistribution, based on the states where the GOP controls the process, it will be a party’s shortest period in the majority since the early 1950s.
“I would much rather be us than them,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) Said of his Democratic colleagues. “With history on our side, the opportunity to win back the House has never been stronger.”
But he added: “We are not going to delay or take anything for granted.”
Other elements of the NRCC’s strategy are beginning to take shape: Emmer will tap on representative Carol Miller (RW.Va.) to serve as its recruiting chair and build on the party’s record-breaking efforts to elect more women to Congress – an important part of their success in 2020. Almost all of the recent gains of the House IDP come from women and minority candidates.
The IDP is particularly positive about Texas, which will get three seats during the redistribution, although the numbers will only be announced in April. In 2020, the Democrats turned their attention to the rapidly divergent suburbs, only to see their party lose ground in rural Latino areas. Republicans are now targeting three times deep blue seats in the Rio Grande Valley that Joe Biden nearly lost in 2020.
And in a sign of how many Republicans regard the state as fertile ground, McCarthy – the most productive fundraiser of the House IDP – has been swinging through the state twice in the past two weeks. He has also stopped several times in Florida, and Scalise is there next week.