A couple of late summer political hiccups for House Republicans don’t worry the head of their campaign arm, Rep. Tom Emmer (D-MN).
Throughout the 2022 cycle, House Republicans have been favored to win the majority on Nov. 8. But on Aug. 16, now-Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) flipped Alaska’s lone House seat after it had been in Republican hands for 49 years. A week later, now-Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) won an upstate New York House seat where polls and pundits had favored the chances of his Republican rival, Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro.
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But Emmer, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told the Washington Examiner he feels bullish about the House Republicans’ odds of winning a majority in November. The party needs to net only five House seats in the 435-member chamber to claim a majority for the first time since the 2018 blue wave put Democrats into power.
Some of the heavy lifting was done in the 2020 elections, when Emmer was in his first two-year term as NRCC chairman. Despite former President Donald Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden, House Republicans picked up 14 seats, putting them within striking distance of winning the majority this November.
Emmer, who has represented the northern and western Minneapolis exurban 6th Congressional District since 2015, said he is looking to build off that momentum as Election Day 2022 nears.
Additionally, Emmer said the political climate has yielded a solid candidate recruitment class that is well positioned to capitalize off Biden’s low approval ratings, a reflection in part of the nation’s worst inflation in 40 years and persistently high gas prices.
That means going on offense.
“We, in this building, [the NRCC leaders], have tried to remind our members since the beginning of the cycle, but certainly in the past year, this is not going to be the typical midterm,” Emmer said. “In 2010, Republicans picked up 63 seats, but [2008 Republican presidential nominee] John McCain won 48 of those two years earlier. We have targeted 74 seats this time, and 16 of them Donald Trump won, so not the same thing. We’re playing in Biden territory.”
That strategy has been complicated by the Supreme Court’s June 24 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization abortion decision. The ruling overturned the 1973 precedent set in Roe v. Wade, which effectively made abortion a national right, and instead sent abortion rights to states to formulate policy.
Democrats are making abortion rights a focal point of their campaigns. Peltola, a former state representative in Alaska, did so in her winning House campaign. So did Ryan, then Ulster County’s executive, in his New York 19th District victory.
Emmer countered with the results of an NBC poll, conducted Sept. 9-13. Emmer noted a question about voter priorities in the midterm elections.
“This is the one that everybody wants to claim is going to change the outcome of the election,” Emmer said of a poll question contrasting whether a person’s priorities are abortion rights or cost of living. “Fifty-nine percent say it’s going to be based on a candidate’s position with respect to the cost of living, and 37% say the issue of abortion.”
Emmer dismissed Democratic claims that the party’s pair of House race victories in August show it can hold the majority. Molinaro, he noted, is an experienced local officeholder who has residual name recognition as the 2018 New York Republican gubernatorial nominee. Molinaro in November is running for the newly configured 19th District, covering southeastern upstate New York, against rookie Democratic candidate Josh Riley, an attorney and former congressional aide.
And newly elected Ryan is running for a different seat, the Upper Hudson Valley 18th District. Ryan will face state Assemblyman Colin Schmitt, an experienced Republican vote-getter, Emmer noted.
“Special elections are not very good predictors of general elections,” Emmer said. “Marc Molinaro is going to win. Colin Schmitt is going to win.”
As for Peltola in Alaska, she’ll face a similar candidate field in the Republican-leaning state. And this time, Alaska’s ranked choice voting system may not help her.
“I fully expect that a Republican candidate is going to come out of that race as the general election winner,” Emmer said.
Democrats playing in GOP House primaries
Emmer also is confident House Republican candidates will win in districts where Democrats invested significant campaign dollars with the aim of producing the weakest GOP general election nominees.
That strategy was on display most vividly in Michigan’s Grand Rapids and Muskegon-area 3rd District. The traditionally GOP territory, once represented in the House by future President Gerald Ford, has become increasingly politically competitive. Voters in the newly created district in 2020 would have backed Biden over Trump 53.3%-44.8%.
Freshman Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI) ran for the new western Michigan House seat. Meijer was among 10 House Republicans who voted for the impeachment of Trump over the former president’s actions, and inactions, around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Meijer, though, ended up losing the Republican nomination to a more conservative primary challenger, John Gibbs, a former Trump administration official and ardent proponent of false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged for Biden or otherwise stolen for Trump.
Gibbs’s primary upset was no accident, though. Sensing Trump-endorsed Gibbs would be an easier general election candidate for Democratic nominee Hillary Scholten to beat, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $450,000 on television advertising meant to boost him in the GOP primary.
Gibbs has been on the defensive of late over past writings arguing women should not be able to vote. On his personal webpage in 2000 and 2001, while attending Stanford University, Gibbs argued women’s suffrage contributed to larger government and increased spending.
“Increasing the size and scope of government is unequivocally bad,” Gibbs wrote. “And since women’s suffrage has caused this to occur on a larger scale than any other cause in history, we conclude that the United States has suffered as a result of women’s suffrage.”
Gibbs’s 2022 House campaign has disavowed those views. And Emmer argued the 3rd Congressional District race is very much in play. Democrats will regret their decision to dump millions into races to boost GOP candidates viewed as more extreme in primaries in an effort to have an easier win in the general election, Emmer said.
“John Gibbs is coming to Congress,” Emmer said. “He is a very articulate, thoughtful, compassionate, sharp human being. They made a big mistake.”
House Republican candidates also may help salvage races for GOP candidates up-ballot, according to Emmer. Several Senate Republican hopefuls have committed campaign trail blunders, to the point that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) lamented the state of “candidate quality.”
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The roster of House candidates may help Republicans prevail who are running for higher office, Emmer said.
“As the House goes, so goes the U.S. Senate and so go state legislative races and other state races because each congressional district should be viewed, and candidate should be viewed, not just as an operation to get a member of Congress elected but to identify voters and turn out voters for everyone up-ticket and everyone down-ticket.”
