However, this doesn’t mean that any of them are in danger of losing reelection. All four sit in deeply Democratic seats with FiveThirtyEight partisan leans1 of D+52 or bluer. And among Democrats, their national net favorability ratings are excellent. Per Emerson, Ocasio-Cortez’s net favorability rating within the party is +37, Omar’s is +26, Tlaib’s is +31, and Pressley’s is +30.
That suggests that none of the four is particularly vulnerable to a primary challenger either — at least if Democrats in their districts are anything like Democrats nationally. And in fact, in Tlaib’s case, we actually have a recent poll that says she is even more popular among Democrats in her district. Last week, Target Insyght and MIRS News surveyed a possible Democratic primary in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. Tlaib aced the test. The poll gave her a stellar +55 net favorability rating among Democratic voters in the district, who also approved of the job she was doing in Congress 76 percent to 14 percent. And in a head-to-head matchup with former Rep. Brenda Jones, whom Tlaib narrowly defeated in 2018’s six-way regular primary election,2 the poll gave Tlaib a 56 percent to 19 percent lead. Even in a three-way race including Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon, Tlaib maintained almost as big a lead over the next closest candidate.
Of the four, Tlaib is probably the most vulnerable of any of the Squad members to a primary challenge. And that’s because she won her first primary just 31 percent to 30 percent over Jones in 2018 — which, as I wrote in April, fits the profile of other first-term representatives who went on to lose their next primaries. By contrast, both Ocasio-Cortez (57 percent) and Pressley (58 percent) won their first primaries with a majority of the vote, and Omar (48 percent, but still 18 points ahead of her closest challenger) wasn’t far behind.
