Source: Politics<\/p>\n
In late September, top Republicans across House GOP leadership, leading political operations and individual campaigns received a trove of internal polling. It sparked a new level of panic.<\/p>\n
The polling didn\u2019t just reveal a harsh environment for the party in power on par with typical midterms, but rather some close-to-catastrophic scenarios in a slew of formerly safe red seats across the country, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss private information.<\/p>\n
Key seats in Kentucky, North Carolina, Nevada and other areas that President Donald Trump won by 10 points or more in 2024 were competitive. All three vulnerable GOP-held seats in Iowa looked doomed. And most ominously, a crop of Republican incumbents who haven\u2019t had to run serious races in years were vulnerable, from Oklahoma to Wisconsin and beyond.<\/p>\n
Now, less than four weeks before Election Day, the concerns are running so deep and the atmosphere is so uncertain that Republicans are beginning to brace for some of the worst-case scenarios.<\/p>\n
“Polls aren’t looking good,\u201d retiring Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) said in an interview. \u201cBut we’ve also seen in the past couple of cycles, polls are really hard to predict. I think there’s just a lot of things in play, and of course, what do we have three weeks out \u2014 that’s light years in political time.\u201d<\/p>\n
One senior House Republican involved in the conversations added: \u201cI think the scary part is we don\u2019t know where the bottom is.\u201d They, like others in this report, were granted anonymity to discuss the political climate honestly.<\/p>\n
Their worst fear \u2014 according to conversations with more than two dozen Republican lawmakers and senior operatives \u2014 is that white working class voters<\/a> in some states who have become central to the GOP coalition won\u2019t just stay home next month, but instead they\u2019ll be so angry or disillusioned by high fuel prices and the war in Iran that enough of them will vote for Democrats.<\/p>\n \u201cThe environment has a lot people scared to death,\u201d said one GOP operative working on a red-leaning House race that is competitive.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere is the surge in Dem votes coming from?\u201d that operative asked. \u201cIs it truly no turnout among white working class? It’s such an open question and we just don’t know the answer. It’s impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n Spokespeople for the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Republican National Committee brushed off the concerns.<\/p>\n “Anonymous strategists who spend more time bed-wetting to media than working in the trenches to win races have no idea what they’re talking about,\u201d RNC spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said.<\/p>\n NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella agreed: \u201cHouse Republicans have a more favorable map, a stronger ground game, a historic fundraising and spending advantages, and battle-tested incumbents while Democrats are stuck dragging their unelectable socialist nominees across the finish line.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, top Republicans\u2019 travel schedule reveals the extent of their concerns: Johnson is heading to deep-red Kentucky on Friday for a fundraiser to boost Republican Ralph Alvarado in the 6th District, which Trump won by 15 points in 2024. Johnson and Trump are also both planning trips to Montana where Republicans are working to fend off a Democratic challenger in a district the president won by more than 11 points.<\/p>\n \u201cSpeaker Johnson is leaving it all on the field and leaving no stone unturned as he campaigns in more than 40 districts and over 20 states in the month leading up to the election,\u201d Johnson\u2019s spokesperson Greg Steele said. And, pointing to Johnson\u2019s record-setting third quarter funding, Steele added that: \u201cJohnson is not slowing down and helping to get resources to every district that will decide the majority.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump is holding a rally in deep-red Tennessee on Saturday, in GOP Rep. Matt Van Epps\u2019 district. That seat \u2014 which is still considered generally safe \u2014 and several others in the state have not been on Republicans\u2019 radar at all, but the current drag of the war and other factors are just too big for them to be comfortable.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m worried about all three in the area,\u201d one Tennessee Republican said of the red-leaning districts Democrats are targeting. \u201cToo many unknowns.\u201d<\/p>\n Even as internal GOP data shows a series of troubles, Republicans argue the polls are overemphasizing Democrats\u2019 advantage. \u201cI think there\u2019s no question there is some undersampling,\u201d said one RNC official, granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not surprised any of these are close. I\u2019m not surprised that Democrats are trying to make it seem like we\u2019re on defense everywhere,\u201d they said. \u201cThese are never [races] that we assumed were overall slam dunks, but I very much like where we sit in all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, the person added that RNC officials don\u2019t have their \u201cheads in the sand\u201d about the challenges, even as they have a more optimistic view of the map.<\/p>\n Loudermilk pointed to Republicans\u2019 lack of cohesive messaging on high gas prices and other goods: \u201cI don\u2019t know if we\u2019re doing a good enough job doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not the best of environments,\u201d Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) told reporters in late September, though he still maintained the GOP will keep House control. \u201cI liked it a lot better when I first got elected in 2010, when the environment was much better for Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n Top Republicans are most worried about staunching the bleeding in key Midwest districts. Senior Republicans believe their internal polling, if it holds, shows likely losses across all three at-risk GOP seats in Iowa: Reps. Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks and the race to replace now-Senate candidate Ashley Hinson, according to four people with direct knowledge of the private information.<\/p>\n A White House official, granted anonymity to candidly discuss the races, said the \u201cdoom and gloom notion\u201d among the Iowa seats isn\u2019t a new phenomenon. \u201cBut I do think that they\u2019re probably performing better than most think that they are. And I think that folks will be pleasantly surprised [when] we go into November 3.\u201d<\/p>\n But benchmarks they\u2019re watching across the larger region are deteriorating as well. Wisconsin Rep. Bryan Steil, the House Administration chair, is in a tighter than comfortable race after winning by 11 points in 2024 \u2014 as is Rep. Brad Finstad across the border in Minnesota, who won his district by 12 points 2024.<\/p>\n In Michigan, the party has a host of problems in battleground districts, but now feels that once-safer seat Republicans \u2014 like Bill Huizenga, who Johnson campaigned with Wednesday, and the race to replace Rep. John James, who is running for governor \u2014 are in jeopardy.<\/p>\n Similarly, after top GOP outside groups cut bait on the blue-leaning Nebraska district held by retiring Rep. Don Bacon, Republicans in the state turned their attention to Rep. Mike Flood\u2019s seat, which Trump carried by 12 points.<\/p>\n One silver lining for Republicans in safer red seats is many are digging in now to shore up their races, and aren\u2019t sleepwalking to November.<\/p>\n The White House official said it\u2019s Trump\u2019s \u201ccoalition of voters\u201d that Republicans need to turn out in the midterms, and \u201cthe president is on the road almost every night this month \u2026 communicating with those individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n But Democrats continue to stretch further into red territory while forecasting big wins.<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel confident that we will get to 218,\u201d Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee political director Brooke Butler said in an interview earlier this week<\/a>, saying the party could win as many as 240 seats. \u201cThe question that I\u2019ve told people from the beginning cycle is \u2018How much?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n