WASHINGTON _ Fresh off the second weekend of nationwide protests against President Donald Trump, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released its initial list of GOP-held seats it plans to target in 2018.
The House Democrats' campaign arm is banking on Trump's unpopularity being a drag on down-ballot Republicans, even though many GOP incumbents proved resilient to efforts to tie them to Trump during 2016. Democrats gained six seats in November.
Of the 59 seats the DCCC is targeting as of now, Trump carried at least eight of them by 15 points or more.
That includes deep-red territory like Alabama's 2nd District, currently held by Martha Roby, which Trump won by 32 points. Roby could be interested in replacing Sen. Jeff Sessions if he's confirmed as attorney general. Her opposition to Trump last fall and her relatively close re-election thanks to a write-in challenger from the right sparked early chatter about a possible 2018 primary.
The DCCC is also going after the upstate New York district held by Trump loyalist Chris Collins, which the president carried by 25 points.
Another deep-red target is Alex Mooney's seat in West Virginia, which Trump carried by 36 points. Democrats contested the 2nd district in 2014, soon after Mooney moved to the state from Maryland to run for office, but national Democrats let it go in 2016 after the DCCC's preferred primary candidate lost.
Presidential results by congressional district are not yet available in North Carolina, but the DCCC list includes two districts in the state that Mitt Romney carried by double digits in 2012 and one new district that was drawn to be safe for Republicans in 2016.
Democrats point to the historical trend of the party that controls the White House losing congressional seats in midterm elections and argue that House Republican policy, especially efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, will backfire.
"On policy, House Republicans are taking the wrong lessons from 2016: kowtowing to Trump's most divisive policies like his border wall, while opposing him on popular plans to preserve Medicare or action on trade," DCCC Executive Director Dan Sena wrote in a memo announcing the committee's targets.
As it did in 2016, the committee is targeting well-educated suburban districts _ even those that have traditionally gone red _ but more of them.
Democrats made late investments in Kansas' 3rd District last cycle, sensing that Trump (and Gov. Sam Brownback) could bring down Rep. Kevin Yoder. The congressman prevailed by 10 points, but Clinton won his district by one point, and now Yoder's starting off the cycle on the target list.
In a similarly well-educated and affluent suburban district, Democrats now plan to go after new House Appropriations Chair Rodney Frelinghuysen, who's represented New Jersey's 11th District since 1995.
The most obvious of the DCCC targets are the 23 districts GOP districts that Clinton won. Several of those incumbents strongly overperformed Trump in November (Florida's Carlos Curbelo, New York's John Katko and Virginia's Barbara Comstock, for instance).
Seven of the 23 districts Clinton won are seats that former President Barack Obama did not carry, which Sena thinks may indicate "a potential Trump-driven problem" for them.
Republicans quickly tried to downplay the DCCC's strategy, with National Republican Congressional Committee national spokesman Jesse Hunt arguing that Republicans in Clinton districts aren't vulnerable because they won by an average of 14 points.
Democrats contend that President Trump may have a different effect than candidate Trump did in 2016. In his Monday memo, Sena notes that the committee's grassroots support has grown in January, particularly since the Inauguration and the Women's March, and that January fundraising set an online record for the first month of the year.
