Once-safe GOP seats threatened by blue wave

[DonViejo]

Rep. Steve Chabot and others are facing tough races for the first time in years.

By ELENA SCHNEIDER 08/21/2018 05:10 AM EDT

CINCINNATI — Republicans who represented some of the safest congressional seats in their party for years are suddenly under intense pressure in 2018, with Democratic challengers threatening to overwhelm them in suburban districts where President Donald Trump has struggled.

One of those districts belongs to Rep. Steve Chabot, an 11-term Republican who has gone years without a serious challenge in the southwestern corner of Ohio. He has been outraised — and, some Republicans say, outworked — by Democrat Aftab Pureval, the 35-year-old clerk of courts in Cincinnati’s Hamilton County, who argues that the congressman has lost touch with a diversifying, suburbanizing district changing beneath his feet.

"The momentum is with us ... even though people can't even pronounce my name," Pureval said to laughter at a recent field office opening northeast of Cincinnati. (During Pureval's clerk's race in 2016, he used an Aflac-style duck to poke fun at his name in his ads.)

And Chabot is not alone. A growing Republican fraternity that includes Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) and John Culberson (R-Texas), who have served a combined 80 years in Congress in traditionally Republican areas, are dusting off their campaigns for the first time in a decade in a treacherous political environment. Chabot has faced tough races before — he lost his seat in 2008 and then won it back in 2010. But he has not been challenged since the Republican-controlled redistricting process redrew the district the next year.

more
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/21/republicans-congress-blue-wave-safe-seats-790101

[beachbum bob]

1. GOP will have spend $$$ to defend safe races not going to work out

too well for them as money alone doesn't make up for bad policies and trump.

[Stuart G]

3. Nothing, absolutely nothing can make up for ....trump...

[dalton99a]

2. GOTV and kick their asses to the curb.

[ananda]

4. Kick!

..

[Gothmog]

5. Beto's townhall last night

Link to tweet