Given that Republicans didn’t lose a single House incumbent in the 2020 election, it’s a reminder of just how much defense House Democrats have been playing for the last several years.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t any GOP lawmakers for Democrats to target. Thanks primarily to redistricting making some swing seats bluer, six House Republicans face the possibility of a competitive general-election campaign. That’s a middling number compared to the 26 House Democrats currently rated as vulnerable in the latest Cook Political Report with Amy Walter ratings. The fate of those six may determine just how big a Republican wave will be in this year’s midterms. And next Tuesday’s primaries in California, with the state’s unique all-party primary, will offer an early metric of where many of these hotly contested races stand.
Half of the six targeted Republicans hail from California, where a nonpartisan redistricting process scrambled the congressional lines. Rep. David Valadao represents the most Biden-friendly district of any Republican currently in the House, and his seat turned even more Democratic (from Biden +11 to Biden +13) as part of the redistricting process. Democrats are bullish on his challenger, state Assemblyman Rudy Salas, given that he has a political base in the district, a moderate ideological profile, and a compelling story as a laborer-turned-first Hispanic city councilman from Bakersfield. This race will test just how much Hispanic voters are drifting away from the Democratic Party; it’s a majority-Hispanic district where Republicans were already competitive.
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