The National Republican Congressional Committee released a list of 47 Democratic-held House districts that it is targeting for 2022, ready to finish the job it started in 2020 chipping away at the Democratic majority and “retire Speaker Pelosi once and for all,” as Chairman Tom Emmer put it.
“We’re going to focus on to build a lasting majority, not just a win, but to build a lasting majority,” Emmer, a Minnesota congressman, told reporters on Wednesday.
The 47 offensive targets include 29 “battleground Democrats” in districts that President Biden lost or where the 2020 presidential or congressional margin was less than 5%, eight “underperforming Democrats” who won by less than 10% and underperformed compared to Biden in the district, and 10 “redistricting watch Democrats” who are at risk of the 2020 census causing their districts to be redrawn since their states will likely either gain or lose congressional seats.
Emmer is the head of the NRCC for the second cycle in a row after leading the committee to success in the 2020 elections. Democrats won big in the 2018 “blue wave” and took back the House majority with around 35 seats more than Republicans. By the time November 2020 came around, most analysts projected that Republicans would lose even more seats despite many Democrats holding seats that Trump won by wide margins.
But Republicans surprised. Not a single incumbent Republican lost reelection, and they toppled 13 incumbent Democrats, resulting in the slimmest majority for Democrats since 1930. That, combined with the trend of the party opposite from the president usually gaining seats in midterm elections, puts Republicans up in a good spot for winning back the majority in 2022.
The plan for 2022, Emmer said, includes expanding on the successful 2020 strategy of tying Democrats to the more radical self-proclaimed socialists in their party.
“The Democrats control every lever of power in Washington, and we’re going to make sure that every voter is aware of their socialist agenda and how radical the policies are that they’re advocating for, and how those radical policies will negatively impact the lives of middle-class Americans,” Emmer said.
Biden’s executive orders, such as halting oil and gas production on federal lands, and the economic impact of that, will also be prime material for Republicans.
Republicans do face a challenge despite their favorable midterm position: Former President Donald Trump, who drove record turnout, will not be at the top of the ticket. But Emmer is not outwardly worried about that.
“I don’t think any of us can simplify the last election, you know, all the changes that were made to the voting rules locally,” he said. “I do think we should embrace those [Trump] policies going forward and improve on them.”
Democrats in the battleground category include Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, who led the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2020 and faced her closest election to date in that district, while Trump performed slightly better than Biden in the district.
The underperforming Democrats category includes members such as Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader, who won 52% of the vote in his district but performed 3 percentage points worse than Biden.
Those Democrats who may be at risk due to redistricting include North Carolina Rep. Deborah Ross, who is in a state that is expected to gain House seats and has a redistricting process decided by the Republican-controlled state legislature.
The full list of Republican targets is below.
Underperforming Democrats category:
CA-45 — Katie Porter
CA-49 — Mike Levin
GA-06 — Lucy McBath
IL-06 — Sean Casten
KS-03 — Sharice Davids
NH-01 — Chris Pappas
OR-05 — Kurt Schrader
TX-32 — Colin Allred
Redistricting watch category:
AZ-02 — Ann Kirkpatrick
CA-03 — John Garamendi
CT-05 — Jahana Hayes
FL-07 — Stephanie Murphy
MN-03 — Dean Phillips
NC-02 — Deborah Ross
NJ-11 — Mikie Sherrill
NY-03 — Tom Suozzi
NY-18 — Sean Patrick Maloney
NY-19 — Antonio Delgado
Battleground Democrats category:
AZ-01— Tom O’Halleran
CA-10— Josh Harder
FL-13 — Charlie Crist
GA-07 — Carolyn Bourdeaux
IA-03 — Cindy Axne
IL-14 — Lauren Underwood
IL-17 — Cheri Bustos
ME-02 — Jared Golden
MI-08 — Elissa Slotkin
MI-11 — Haley Stevens
MN-02 — Angie Craig
NJ-03 — Andy Kim
NJ-05 — Josh Gottheimer
NJ-07 — Tom Malinowski
NV-03 — Susie Lee
NV-04 — Steven Horsford
OH-13 — Tim Ryan
OR-04 — Peter DeFazio
PA-07 — Susan Wild
PA-08 — Matt Cartwright
PA-17 — Conor Lamb
TX-07 — Lizzie Fletcher
TX-15 — Vincente Gonzalez
TX-28 — Henry Cuellar
TX-34 — Filemon Vela
VA-02 — Elaine Luria
VA-07 — Abigail Spanberger
WA-08 — Kim Schrier
WI-03 — Ron Kind
