GOP election spending in very blue districts has Democrats concerned: report

31 October 2022

Released on Friday, October 28, an Emerson College/The Hill poll found Democratic incumbent New York Gov. Kathy Hochul ahead of her GOP challenger, Rep. Lee Zeldin, by 6 percent — which isn’t a very large lead in light of the fact that New York is a state that President Joe Biden won by 23 percent in 2020. Moreover, Zeldin isn’t a moderate conservative like former New York Gov. George Pataki or Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, but a far-right MAGA culture warrior who is stridently anti-abortion and very pro-Donald Trump. And that isn’t the only place where a Republican candidate is overperforming in a blue state or blue district in the 2022 midterms.

In an article published by Politico on Halloween 2022, Jake Lahut stresses that Democratic strategists are noticing the money that Republicans are spending in certain blue U.S. House districts — and they aren’t taking it lightly.

Lahut reports, “The closing days of the 2022 midterms have offered Republican political action committees flush with cash an opportunity too good to pass up: owning the libs by making them spend money in otherwise reliably blue seats…. Republicans insist that upset voters in places like New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Oregon — normally reliably liberal strongholds — are trending in their direction. Inflation, gas prices, and crime have been the driving forces behind multi-million-dollar ad buys in districts where total outside spending used to not even cross into six figures, a sign of the GOP’s bullishness and last-minute embrace of expanding the map in the midterms.”

A Republican strategist, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told the Beast, “We are able to play in districts that Biden won by 10-plus points, showing just how f****d Democrats are in two weeks.”

Even if the Democratic candidate ultimately prevails in such a district, Lahut writes, Republicans are creating “mischief” by forcing Democrats to spend more money in a place than they normally wouldn’t need to — for example, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney’s district in New York State.

A GOP strategist interviewed by the Beast described the GOP investment in those blue districts as “f***- you money.” But Lahut emphasizes that “Democratic operatives are still taking the spending spree seriously.”

A Democratic strategist, also interviewed anonymously, told the Beast, “I think it’s three pieces. Make us play defense where we don’t want to play defense. Expand the map, because you can pick up one or two of these things on the off-chance that it makes Kevin McCarthy look like a genius…. The last piece is, there are some crazies who think that these seats are actually viable.”

Lahut cites Rep. Jahana Hayes of Connecticut as another example of a Democrat who is receiving a surprisingly aggressive challenge in a blue district.

Steve Greenberg, a pollster for Siena College, told the Beast, “Look, in midterm elections, Republicans historically outperform their enrollment disadvantage in New York. The question is by how much…. They’re going after Maloney in the 17th (Congressional District) with a lot of spending. Congresswoman Stefanik thinks Republicans could win 15 of the 26 seats in New York. That seems illogical to me, but we don’t play these games on paper — we play them on the field of elections.”

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