House races

Let's take a look at where we actually gained seats last night: FL-16, LA-6, KS-2, TX-22.

And look at places where we well could have, but fell short: PA-11, WI-8, NH-1.

Notice a pattern here? These all fit the conventional target of weak freshman Democrat (PA-11 excepted) elected in a conservative area. The gains all fit this criteria and they were all south of the Mason-Dixon.

Much is made of the fact that we do not have a single representative in New England, but I am equally if not more concerned about the fact that we seem to be losing our grip on the conservative areas in blue states, as evidenced by losses or too-close-to-call races in MD-1, MI-7, and MI-9. The fact that we backslid 9 points from 2004 in Pennsylvania (tied to an underperformance from final House race polls), and 12 points in Michigan despite the fact that these were "bitter" Hillary states suggests something is seriously amiss. Zell Miller's "a national party no more" could easily apply to the GOP if this continues.

I am beginning to think that looking at House and Senate races and doing descending sorts on Bush 2004 percentages has become a seriously crippling way of targeting House seats. The President won 250 or so House districts in 2004. But building a majority solely by picking seats off this target list becomes seriously problematic. To win 218 races from this grouping, you'd need to win 87% of races. To win 200, leaving a handful to come from blue districts, you'd need to win 80%.

These need-to-win percentages are simply too high. First, you have personally popular Democrat incumbents in many of these seats. And second, any district that was within 10 points of the national median at the Presidential level is (at best) only a lean to one party or another for Congress.

We need to expand the map.

We need to get to a place where we only need to win 60% or two thirds of our "winnable" races. And that requires expanding the definition of a winnable race.

This is not a fifty state strategy. It is a 435 district strategy. Parties and Presidential candidates trade within narrow bands within states. Local candidates trade in very wide bands, enabling them to win "safe" seats from the other party. All the field organizers in the world did not flip Alaska, North Dakota, and Montana at the Presidential level, and states like Indiana, Florida, and North Carolina were either attainable because of the national swing, or next door to Illinois.

We need to contest all 435 seats -- there are some, like the inner cities, that we will never get. But for everything else, we should act like these are winnable seats for Republicans, if not this time, then next time, or the time the seat opens up.

We need to encourage good repeat candidates in Democratic seats. The average second-time candidate who won in 2006 won just 42% in their previous bid. A lot of people figure they won't run if they're not absolutely sure they can win. We need to create a culture, like the one that exists in Britain, where it's expected that you'll have one or two elections to hone your skills as a candidate before winning. Barack Obama was a failed House candidate in 2000.

In many ways, our failure in the House was a failure of recruiting. A Diana Irey could have knocked off Murtha this year. In other ways, we will need to strengthen our focus in rebuilding in the blue states so we can credibly raid seats on the other side.

A House race to keep an eye on is Iowa's 2nd District which includes Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

Dr. Marianette Miller-Meeks won the GOP primary for the seat last Tuesday (by 109 votes!) after being down by over 20 points to Peter Teahen, who belonged to a very well known family in the area.

Dr, Miller-Meeks is a physician, a 25 year veteran in the Air Force where she holds the rank of Lt. Colonel in the reserves, is the daughter of a Master Seargent in the Air Force, was raised near San Antonio, TX and her husband has served two tours of duty in Iraq. She was the AMA's spokesman for Iowa in Washington D.C. and is very articulate.

The 2nd district was Republican for 26 years until the Democrat Dave Loebsack won it from Jim Leach in 2006 by 6,000 votes out of 208,00 cast. Leach won it by 60,000 votes in 2004.(The district was drastically changed in the 2000 census, when Iowa lost a House seat going from 6 to 5).

With Miller-Meeks bio she has an excellent chance of winning it back for the GOP. Iowa and Mississippi are the only 2 states that have never had a woman in the House or Senate or as Governor. Hillary Clinton mentioned this as an explanation why she ran 3rd in the Iowa caucus.

Marianette is incredibly well informed on every issue and what is very exciting to me, is a true believer in free markets, individual freedom, limited government and low taxes.. She isvvery vocal on personal accounts for Social Security, for free market health care solutions, making the Bush tax cuts permanent, cutting corporate tax rates to 20% to ensure global competitiveness, is against earmarks, is against climate alarmism, and supports free trade, even in Iowa.  

Dr. Miller-Meeks would be a vast improvement over Jim Leach who was an arch RINO, but Dave Loebsack is a socialist. 

This one could be a counter-trend race. Everyone who meets her loves her.  She's a lot more conservative in person than she is on her website. She told me on economic issues, she's a more practical Ron Paul, without the isolationism.

Freedom's Watch is targetting 30 congressional districts held by Democrats with robocalls attacking Democrats record on military issues. Listen to the robocall here.

The districts are:

AZ-05, AZ-08, CA-51, CA-11, CT-2, FL-16, GA-08, IL-08, KS-02, LA-06, MD-05, MD-08, MS-01, NH-01, NV-01, NY-20, OH-18, PA-07, PA-10, PA-08, PA-12, TX-22, TX-23, CT-05, KY-03, NH-02, PA-04, WI-08, NY-19, IL-14

With the exception of MD-08 (Rep. Van Hollen, the DCCC Chair), these are districts that many analysts think that the GOP can apply pressure and/or seats that the Dems took in 2006.

The calls, featuring Beverly Perlson, the founder of Band of Mothers, discuss the Congressional Democrats leaving for vacation while the troop funding bill has not been passed. Mrs. Perlson has written about this at NRO.

The script is after the jump.

Hello fellow Next Righters!

I'm hoping, as June rolls in, to document the major New Hampshire races coming up - specifically the governor race where incumbent John Lynch and his merry band of budget breakers are facing semi-grassroots opponent Joe Kenney, the extra-important Jean Shaheen/John Sununu Senate race, and the easily-doable Jeb Bradley/Carol Shea-Porter race in Manchester's House district.

For more about me (short answer: Massachusetts ex-pat, libertarian atheist conservative who focuses more on economic issues and is trying to convince himself to vote for McCain and failing), you can visit my website. I'm currently a registered independent, supported Ron Paul in the primary and kind of regret it, and I'm tired of being 27 and lacking like-minded folks my age who want to stand up, be heard, act, etc.

Back on topic, one of the interesting issues I've faced thus far is how difficult it has been to get involved, however. GraniteGrok has touched on this a bit regarding Sununu's campaign - the campaigns have been scary silent up to this point, and continue to be difficult - multiple e-mails to Sununu's campaign headquarters have gone unanswered for me, and my one attempt at visiting the campaign office during what would be considered "business hours" ten minutes from my home bore no fruit. At least Jeb Bradley has a Facebook presence, and even then, that's not going to win against an incumbent in an urban area. You'd think these candidates would want our help!

A lot of virtual ink has been spilled about the lack of good, bottom-up movement on the web and elsewhere, and I can't speak for any other campaigns, but the right is in big, big trouble if the early reads on the campaigns up here are similar nationwide. My hope is to document life on the ground here - if they ever let me on the ground - and other aspects of the New Hampshire greater landscape. Expect more posts from me as June rolls around.

There will be plenty of attention to the Presidential race this year, and for good reason. Keeping the White House has got to be the highest priority for Republicans of all stripes.

One of the goals of The Next Right is to provide a central location at which junkies, activists, interest group people, etc. can find good information. If people are operating off of the same information, hopefully we as a movement can start to get on the same page.

We would like to invite contributors who know about these races to write about these races and others that might be important. Stuart Rothenberg's list of races and his categorization are below.

My sense is that these are basically correct. A number of these depend on primaries. (note that Redstate's Erick Erickson has posted a calendar and feed of primaries) For example, if former Rep. Jeb Bradley (NH) wins his September 9th primary, I suspect that race moves into Toss Up. However, if Don Young (AK) wins his primary, I suspect it moves into Tilt D. (local polling suggests that)

I also suspect that Darren White (NM-1) is, perhaps, our best recruit of the cycle, and will probably be able to pull this off.

I want to know more. What is out there?