BARTLETT, Ill. — The Republican Party is on the ropes in America’s upscale suburbs, usually friendly territory that is poised to rebuke President Trump and deliver the House majority to the Democrats, in the final days of a volatile fall campaign.
In suburban Chicago, Rep. Peter Roskam is battling to survive amid political headwinds Republicans last experienced in the late 2000s with dual blue waves that booted the GOP from power in Congress and elevated Illinois Democrat Barack Obama to the White House. Roskam always beat the odds, overcoming challenges more daunting than his Democratic opponent this year, businessman Sean Casten.
None of these hurdles were Trump.
In galvanizing a loyal coalition of conservative populists that won an unlikely 2016 victory simultaneously drove moderate Republican women and independents in the suburbs into the arms of the Democrats, putting the House in play and the GOP majority in serious jeopardy. In Roskam’s district, Democrat Hillary Clinton defeated Trump by 7 points; similar results played out in nearly two-dozen traditionally Republican seats.
“I’ve said early on in this presidency that the president should stop tweeting; just throw the Twitter feed away and there’s really nothing good I’ve seen that has happened as a result,” Roskam said Wednesday in an interview with the Washington Examiner, after a campaign swing through the 6th Congressional District. “When it’s been appropriate for me to stand up to the administration, I’ve done that, and I’ve been vocal.”
Putting an “independent check” on Trump is a big theme of the Casten campaign. This is “something that Peter Roskam has failed to do as he’s voted with Trump 94 percent of the time,” Casten spokesman Greg Bales said. Casten declined a request for an interview.
The Trump revolt in suburbia is fueling the Democratic Party just down the road in the neighboring 14th Congressional District, a roughly half-rural, half-suburban seat drawn to protect Republican incumbents and that voted for the president over Clinton by nearly 4 points.
Republican Rep. Randy Hultgren is in measurably better shape than Roskam, according to the available polling data and the analysis of party insiders on both sides of the aisle.
But the congressman’s dynamic Democratic challenger, Obama administration veteran Lauren Underwood, an African-American woman, is forcing Hultgren to fight for a fifth term. The rise of quality Democratic candidates in usually sleepy GOP districts like the 14th is a key component of what House Republicans are spread so thin as they labor to defend their 23-seat majority.
Early Thursday morning, more than two-dozen Underwood supporters packed a meeting room at a local community college for a round table on climate change and the environment. This sort of fresh energy in GOP districts on the margins of competitiveness is boosting Democratic prospects, putting even more pressure on Republican incumbents in battleground districts that are on the frontlines of the Democrats’ assault.
“You are finding a lot of women, in particular, that are motivated and angry and upset and are actually taking that next step to actually get involved, not only through traditional routes in terms of the county party structures or the county parties, but also just kind of forming their own pop-up groups,” said Kristina Zahorik, chairwoman of the Democratic Party in McHenry County, in the 14th District.
“In previous cycles, we didn’t see that,” Zahorik added.
Democrats less than two weeks before Election Day are maintaining a generic ballot lead of between 7 and 8 points, just enough for them to win the House but not enough to guarantee victory. Some Republicans, though still in danger, have seen their numbers improve as GOP enthusiasm has ticked up in the aftermath of the explosive confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Roskam, hard-working and battle-tested, is beginning to feel a change in the tide that the sixth-term congressman said reminds him of past hard-fought finishes in tough environments.
On Wednesday, a relaxed Roskam accepted the endorsement of a local chamber of commerce before assembled dignitaries and employees at an automotive repair shop in Crystal Lake, a leafy community of 40,000 in his district, as he talked up tax reform and its impact on the economy.
The $1.3 trillion tax overhaul has been a tough sell in affluent blue-state suburbs, as voters calculate the loss of the federal deduction for state and local taxes. Roskam, as member of the House tax-writing committee, has come under fire for the legislation in some quarters. But signs of pressure were nonexistent as he traversed the district, asking voters to talk about how the law improved their finances.
The Roskam campaign is hitting Casten for supporting a hike in the gas tax, an issue that could offset blowback for his support of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Backng a gas tax is a curious position in an area where voters are so dependent on their automobiles for transportation. Roskam said his opposition is “common sense,” an approach that he believes has helped him weather past storms, and will do so again.
“I love campaigns like this — because campaigns like this are about worldview. This is not donkeys and elephants; it’s not shirts and skins, it’s about how do we view the economy ultimately,” Roskam said as he accepted the chamber endorsement.
