Narrow it? We need to take back the majority, and if Donald Trump wins, we will. This is not 1988 or 1956, I find it odd most people here think Trump will win but seem to think the House is hopeless. If he’s winning, even in a near tie, he’s carrying most districts and anything other more than a narrow rat majority is very unlikely. If he’s winning by more than last time, forget it, it will be a GOP House, maybe narrowly but still.
We lost THIRTY incumbents in 2018 BTW, we did NOT lose due to open seats.
A retirement in safe seat like this means nothing and people peeing themselves over it makes less than zero sense. In this case it’s a GOOD thing, Shimkus is subpar for such a Republican (71% Trump) seat and has long overstayed his welcome. The rat nominee for this seat can’t get 40% let alone win it, and no the NRCC won’t need to spend resources there either, it’s a gimme district, courtesy of rat gerrymandering (they had to put the Republicans somewhere).
Impy, I don’t think it’s as simple as you make it seem. We lost plenty of seats in safe districts-—or, at least, districts once deemed safe. I think four or five of the CA losses were in previously safe districts but I could be wrong.
I’m less concerned with the “safe/not safe” aspect of open seats than the sheer randomness.
1) It ALWAYS depends on the candidate (see McSally’s senate run and Heller, vs, say DeSantis). The more open seats, the more likelihood of a Roy Moore or a Sheriff Joe who will lose regardless of the #s. I keep repeating this, but Moore left home 685,000 Rs on election day. That was an “un-losable” seat, yet he lost it.
So the more open seats you have, the more likelihood we’ll get at least a few dipsticks who couldn’t win a high school talent contest.
2) Money. The more open seats, the more money has to be spread around by the RNCC. In 2018, the RNCC was pathetic in how they allotted funds, putting, as I heard it, $10m into just two seats, Comstock in VA and Coffman in CO.
3) Organizations. Incumbents usually have proven organizations. That’s why they are incumbents. I can’t give you a house example, but John James lost MI for two reasons: lack of name recognition and a terrible campaign team.
I heard, for example, that a powerful radio host had arranged to have Ted Nugent in studio to endorse James, but his campaign manager was too incompetent to get James to the studio. This is just one of a number of complaints I hears about his team. McSally, bad as she personally was, had a terrible campaign team. (Fortunately, she has switched it out, but I’m not sure the replacements are that good, either).
4) Luck. At the House level, there is always the stroke of luck involving local issues-—a freeway going in, a local tax, some previous local history-—that can sway a race. Yes, this can go our way too, but in 2018, the DemoKKKrats did what I thought was impossible: they ran the table on every single GOP contested seat. 20 seats by under 2% each.