Is Pennsylvania, a lynchpin of President Trump’s victory in 2016, on the verge of evening the scales by tipping the House majority to the Democrats in 2018?
The state could deliver a quarter of the 23 seats Democrats need to win control of the House, and it has little to do with the political environment working against the Republicans. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court jammed through a last minute, reverse gerrymander of the state’s congressional districts, driving this unexpected opportunity.
“The map clearly made difficult jobs more difficult,” Charlie Gerow, a veteran Republican operative in Pennsylvania, said. “I don’t think you can get around that.”
Political strategists in both parties agree: Republicans are poised to lose seats in Pennsylvania in the midterm.
As to how many, the prognostications vary. The Democrats could flip as many as six districts — 26 percent of what they need to capture the House. If views on Trump’s leadership improve and political headwinds subside, Republicans could escape with only two losses.
“There’s a very real opportunity, if it’s a good year,” a Democratic strategist involved in House races said.
Most vulnerable are two open seats redrawn to heavily favor Democratic candidates, the 5th and 6h districts of Southeast Pennsylvania that have been trending liberal in any event.
Next on the firing line is the 7th District, smack in the middle of the state’s eastern flank. This seat belonged to high profile centrist Republican Charlie Dent until he resigned from Congress earlier this month. From there the level of difficulty increases for the Democrats.
Encouraging Republicans that they might hang on in the three other vulnerable districts are the boundaries — they were drawn more competitively than the latter three — and the Democratic nominees that emerged from the state’s May 15 primaries. Republicans argue they are too progressive for the political preferences of the voters in these districts.
“The primaries showed us that the far Left controls the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania now,” said Josh Novatney, a Republican lobbyist based in Philadelphia.
Republicans expect GOP incumbents, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in the 1st District and Rep. Scott Perry in the 10th District, to hold on, although not before being severely tested. They also profess optimism about Rep. Keith Rothfus, who is taking on Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb in a 17th District that would have only narrowly supported Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton had it existed in the last election.
That’s a potentially crucial data point. Lamb won Pennsylvania’s old 18th District in a hard fought special election earlier this year. That seat backed Trump over Clinton by 20 percentage points in November 2016, and Lamb took it despite repeated visits to the district by the president on behalf of the Republican candidate, Rick Saccone.
“Congressman Lamb knows how to win tough races,” Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement the DCCC issued with a memorandum detailing its views on the race.
To score an advantage, the Democrats have to hold down their losses. Republicans believe that could be problematic. The GOP was happy with voter engagement and turnout in the primaries, despite the Democrats’ advantage, and sees an opportunity of its own in the new congressional map.
Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright is running in an 8th District that would have backed Trump over Clinton in 2016, and half of the seat’s voters are new to him. The Republican nominee, John Chrin, a venture capitalist, is well-funded and expected to wage the first formidable challenge that Cartwright has faced in years.
Of the Republicans’ few legitimate pickup opportunities across the country this cycle, this race ranks at the top of the list, said a strategist in Pennsylvania who is monitoring the national playing field.
