“We made it clear from day one that we would aggressively build the largest battlefield in a decade and recruit strong candidates who can win tough races, regardless of the national environment,” said DCCC Spokesman Tyler Law. “Our Democratic candidates have beat Republican outside groups to the airwaves in the vast majority of races, and our ability to win the early air-war forced Republicans to already abandon some vulnerable incumbents and expand the map into new districts where they didn’t want to spend. Despite increasingly desperate Republican rhetoric, our strategy is working and we have built multiple paths to the majority.”
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GOP floods new House seats with cash in late rescue effort | Politico
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/24/gop-house-funding-936220
Republicans are launching 11th-hour rescue missions into a set of longtime GOP House districts that have tightened weeks before the election, highlighting the limits of the recent boost in voter enthusiasm touted by the GOP — and the dangerous cash deficit haunting some Republican candidates.
Two weeks until Election Day, a constellation of groups — including the National Republican Congressional Committee’s independent expenditure unit; Congressional Leadership Fund, the House leadership-aligned super PAC; and America First Action, the principal super PAC backing President Donald Trump — are pouring millions of dollars into TV ads to help GOP members in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York, North Carolina and Virginia. It’s a last-minute effort that Republican operatives say will shore up lawmakers in seats that once leaned Republican but have become increasingly competitive.
It’s also a troubling sign for the GOP’s prospects of keeping the House. Most of Republicans’ new defensive fortifications are coming in districts where the GOP has won easily in the past and has been expected to do so again in 2018, and Democrats have not considered them top targets or must-wins on their path to flip 23 seats and retake the House majority. While Republicans in some districts have benefited from Trump’s rising approval rating and a boost of energy following Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, the new ad spending shows Democrats are still making inroads into a range of Republican-held seats, including some where the GOP candidates are getting massively outspent.
[…] The NRCC jumped into a trio of suburban seats this week where Democrats raised more money than Republican incumbents last quarter. The GOP House committee dumped $1.4 million into the northern Atlanta suburbs to support GOP Rep. Karen Handel, who’s facing Democrat Lucy McBath, a gun control activist. The NRCC also threw down $600,000 apiece to help Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) on Wednesday and the same amount for Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.).
CLF is simultaneously swooping in to three more districts, blitzing TV air waves with ads benefiting Republican Reps. John Katko of New York, Fred Upton of Michigan and open-seat contender Denver Riggleman, the Republican running to replace retiring Rep. Tom Garrett (R-Va.).
America First Action is also going up in Ohio’s 12th District, the Republican-leaning seat narrowly won by GOP Rep. Troy Balderson in a closely watched August special election.
[…] House Democrats portrayed Republicans’ new financial infusion as a sign their party was expanding the map, cutting into GOP territory that many leaders viewed as safe and many political analysts long considered “likely” or “lean” Republican seats.
“Our ability to win the early air-war forced Republicans to already abandon some vulnerable incumbents and expand the map into new districts where they didn’t want to spend,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Tyler Law said in a statement. “Despite increasingly desperate Republican rhetoric, our strategy is working and we have built multiple paths to the majority.”
[…] Indeed, it was a recent DCCC ad buy against Mast that triggered the NRCC to wade into the coastal district Trump carried by 9 points, two GOP sources said. House Democrats invested in the seat in mid-October after Global Strategy Group, a Democratic polling firm, said candidate Lauren Baer was “within striking distance” of Mast.
Back in May, Baer trailed Mast 18 points, according to a polling memo from Global Strategy Group; by late September, Baer, an ex-State Department official, was only 3 points behind the Republican incumbent.
[…]