Democrats eye a broader battlefield to capture Congress in November.
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 4 hours ago
- 4 min read
By EMILY COCHRANE and REID J. EPSTEIN
As the mule-drawn floats and carts lined up for the annual Mule Day parade in Columbia, Tennessee, Mayor Chaz Molder, a Democratic donkey in conservative country, was bantering with Republican officials when one official called out, “With as much money as you raised, you should have two more donkeys.”
Molder, 42, waved off the remark, but onlookers in mule T-shirts and floppy mule ears weighed in on the mayor’s unlikely challenge to Rep. Andy Ogles, with either a hardy “go get ’em, Chaz” or a quieter call of support for the incumbent, a hard-core conservative who in any other year would be hard to beat.
That Ogles’ seat is even in the conversation is an indication of the political shape Republicans find themselves in as they approach the midterm elections. Anger over President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, spiking gas prices and persistent affordability concerns have led to shifts of up to 20 percentage points in recent elections compared with the 2024 election that returned Trump to the White House.
Tennessee Republicans thought they drew a safe seat during the last redistricting cycle, slicing a Democratic district in Nashville into three districts stretching into rural areas. The 5th Congressional District now reaches south of even Columbia, a town of nearly 50,000 about 50 miles south of the state capital. Ogles won it for the first time in 2022, by nearly 14 percentage points. The question is whether Trump’s 18-point advantage in the district in 2024 is enough to guarantee a win this fall.
Democrats are becoming increasingly aggressive at targeting Republican seats once considered out of reach. In recent weeks, the House Democratic campaign arm began paying for digital advertising in a South Texas district where Trump prevailed by 18 points and where a Tejano singing star, Bobby Pulido, is challenging a Republican incumbent, Rep. Monica De La Cruz. Democratic digital ads are also attacking Rep. Nick Begich in the at-large House contest that covers all of Alaska, where Trump won by 13 points.
Democrats are also expanding their ambitions in Senate elections, where the four-seat pickup needed for control once felt impossible. Democrats initially focused on maintaining seats in Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire, with possible pickups in Maine and North Carolina. Now they are looking at Ohio, Alaska, Texas and Iowa — and wondering how to support independent candidates challenging Republicans in Nebraska and Montana.
And in the House, there are plans to soon add more seats that Trump carried by as many as 20 percentage points. On Friday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched Spanish-language digital ads in the Florida districts of Rep. Cory Mills, which Trump won by 13 percentage points, and Rep. Laurel Lee, which Trump won by 11 points; a Miami-area district that he won by 15 points; and a neighboring seat that he won by 25 points.
Meantime, outside opportunities keep opening up, in western Montana, where Rep. Ryan Zinke is retiring from a seat that Trump won with 54%, and in West Texas, where Tony Gonzales resigned amid a sex scandal from a seat the president won with 57%. (In contrast, Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat under similar scandal, left a district that Kamala Harris won with 66%.)
“Democrats are on offense, Republicans are running scared, and our expansive map reflects it,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene, the Seattle-area chair of the campaign committee.
In a House where Republicans hold a three-seat majority, Democrats need to flip just a few seats to win a majority next year. Harris won nine Republican-held districts, as currently configured, but House Republicans represent 21 additional districts that Trump carried by 10 points or less. Another 55 are in districts Trump carried by 10 to 20 points.
The special election in northwest Georgia two weeks ago had a 25-point swing away from Trump. No one thinks the country will put up numbers like that in November.
But some of the Democrats seen as more likely to make gains in Republican-leaning districts have cleared more than $1 million in fundraising hauls.
Federal Election Commission reports filed last week showed Molder sitting on a war chest of more than $1.2 million, while Ogles’ campaign reported just $85,000 in cash on hand at the end of March.
“For any Republican that identifies as a Republican voter, they need to take this seriously,” Steve Hickey, chair of the Williamson County Republican Party, said of Ogles’ race and other midterm races. With part of his county included in the district, he added, “we are certainly not resting on our laurels.”
Republicans in Washington and Tennessee remain confident that districts like Ogles’ will remain under their party’s purview.
“Democrats targeting safe Republican seats in red states like Tennessee is pure political hallucination,” said Reilly Richardson, a spokesperson for the House Republican campaign arm. “They’re operating on our turf, and they’ll be stuck wasting their money in unwinnable districts.”
Spending from Republican-aligned super political action committees and other independent expenditure committees is likely to more than make up for whatever money candidates raise anyway.
Ogles’ district replaced what, for 150 years, had been a solidly Democratic seat. Rep. Jim Cooper, the centrist Democrat who first won the old district in 2002, retired, leaving it for Ogles, the former mayor of rural Maury County.
Since then, Ogles, 54, has garnered scrutiny and controversy, including a federal investigation into his finances and backlash over a slew of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim comments.
But Ogles has batted back both Republican and Democratic challengers in the past. In recent days, he has highlighted the renaming of a Columbia post office; his support for plans to open a new veterans clinic in the district; and his fierce opposition to illegal immigration, temporary protected status for Haitian migrants and Muslims of all kinds.
“I’m sorry to hurt your feelings, but ‘America First’ means Americans first,” Ogles said during a conference call with constituents Thursday, responding to a question about his opposition to a pathway to citizenship for refugees and other immigrants.