Six Seats the Democrats Are Fighting For to Help Flip the House
The Democratic Party will need a net gain of 24 seats to win control of the House. It won’t be easy: Republicans have battle-tested incumbents plus advantages in redistricting and outside money. But the White House almost always loses ground in midterm elections, and Trump’s sagging approval rating is raising Democrats’ hopes of overturning the GOP majority for the first time since 2006, when they flipped 30 seats midway through George W. Bush’s second term. Democrats are mounting vigorous early campaigns in dozens of races, including these six districts. —Giroux writes for Bloomberg Government
The retirement of GOP Representative Dave Reichert after seven terms gives Democrats a chance to pick up a district that includes Seattle suburbanites who work at Microsoft Corp. and Boeing Co. Hillary Clinton won here by 3 percentage points. The district also voted in 2016 to reelect Democratic Senator Patty Murray by 4 points.
Contenders: The leading Republican candidate is Dino Rossi, a former state senator who lost statewide races for governor in 2004 and 2008 and against Murray for the Senate in 2010. Through the end of September, he was the top fundraiser, with more than $578,000. A big field of lesser-known Democrats includes Kim Schrier, a pediatrician who’s getting donations from dozens of doctors; Jason Rittereiser, a former prosecutor; Tola Marts, a city councilman in Issaquah, near Seattle; and Mona Das, a mortgage broker who came to the U.S. from India as a child.