Uncontested
House districts that could be competitive are going essentially unchallenged. Some want to change that.
If the current, manically unproductive congressional term has shown us anything, it’s the importance of each and every seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. We’ve seen retirements narrow a slim Republican majority to one where just two defections can kill any vote. We’ve see GOP leadership lose votes because one member couldn’t attend that day. We’ve seen a tiny group depose a Speaker.
So it’s perhaps surprising that according to one analysis, both parties are failing to seriously contest a bunch of winnable districts.
Fully 60 percent of districts with PVI (Partisan Voting Index) ratings between 0 and +10 had no candidate from the opposing party with at least $200,000 cash on hand at the end of 2023—including half of those between 0 and +5. That data comes from the Welcome Party, a centrist Democratic group urging greater action in these potential battleground races.
Democrats, according to Welcome Party co-founder Lauren Harper Pope, are conceding several Republican-held seats in California, others in Florida, and a third group across the Midwest. After a couple of losses, Democrats have chalked these districts up as hopeless, safe Republican districts. “But possibly they’re not, with the right moderate Democratic candidate,” says Harper Pope.
Republicans, by the same analysis, are failing to challenge in several suburban districts, in districts with many voters of color, and in several districts in Illinois.
The Welcome Party posits that this lack of competition is bad for democracy generally. But, they’re mostly interested in fixing the Democratic Party side. Additionally, to Harper Pope, these districts offer the chance to elect a moderate Democrat, who might then help bring an increasingly progressive caucus back to the middle.
So, are Democrats throwing in the towel in districts that could be competitive? New quarterly finance reports filed this week seem to bolster that case.
In California, Democratic nominees against Michelle Steel and Young Kim—both of whom ousted Democrats in 2020—ended March poorly funded more than three weeks after their primaries, and given lengthening odds by the punditry. In Florida, which holds its primaries in August, several districts with barely any partisan advantage are currently regarded as “Safe Republican” by Cook Political Report because of a lack of credible Democratic challengers.
Harper Pope points to others, including a Pennsylvania district carried by Josh Shapiro in his election as governor, and one similarly won by Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan.
Mind you, not everybody sees these as missed opportunities. A slight Republican advantage plus the power of incumbency makes these difficult battles to take on. Potential strong candidates, and national funders, often figure they’ll sit it out until a retirement offers an open seat to swing for; the next-tier candidates who step up have that much more trouble raising enough money to demonstrate credibility, and the cycle continues. And perhaps, some would argue, all for the better—resources and energy are better spent elsewhere.
And moderate candidates, though perhaps standing a better chance in those districts, don’t enthuse national donors—who tend to direct their funds toward candidates who light them up with their liberal fire, or take on the most notorious and loathed ultra-conservatives.
That makes no sense to Harper Pope. “If you want to be a big-tent party, and you’re not playing in these places, what are you participating for?” she asks.
Harper Pope sees her job as reversing that spiral—“helping to move the market,” she says. She cites Will Rollins, who had trouble garnering interest of the major institutional funding groups when he took on Republican Ken Calvert in 2022. This cycle, he was in the first group named to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)’s Red To Blue program.
Currently, Welcome Party is trying to boost Rebecca Cooke, a candidate in Wisconsin, to the attention of donors. Jennifer Adams in Florida too, and others.
Should others follow their lead? Feel free to tell me what you think, in the comments.