DCCC prepares

Democrats bet the House on Trump

The DCCC prepares to go up on television earlier than in any previous election cycle.

By Edward-Isaac Dovere

As part of an effort to nationalize the November elections by tying Republicans to their lightning-rod presidential nominee, House Democrats have begun collaborating with Hillary Clinton’s campaign to build what they’re calling their “Trump model” of persuadable voters.

With Donald Trump heading to Washington to meet with the House GOP Thursday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is also preparing to go up on television in districts earlier than in any previous cycle with an ad campaign designed to buttress the Trump-centric messaging guidance that’s already emanating from Washington — all built around a “party over country”-themed plan of attack for the fall.

The hope is that a combination of Democrats riled up by Trump, moderate Republicans and independents turned off to the party brand, and disaffected Republicans staying home will accelerate blue shifts in marginal districts to start their long road back to the majority. But more immediately, they’re hoping to pick off enough moderate Republicans to leave House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) squeezed by the Freedom Caucus come January, which they believe will neutralize him both in Congress and as a potential 2020 challenger to Clinton.

The Republican nominee has already taken on a starring role in House campaigns around the country.

In Texas, Pete Gallego, who’s running against Rep. Will Hurd to try to win back his seat, simply asked the Clinton campaign to post its Spanish-language ad full of Trump’s comments about immigrants on his own website.

In Kansas, while trying to flip a suburban district where the DCCC thinks Trump makes the race competitive, Jay Sidie uses the presumptive GOP nominee as his closer as he campaigns against Rep. Kevin Yoder.

Congressional issues like the fiduciary rule “kind of put people to sleep, to be honest with you,” Sidie said. “And then there’s Trump — and then they wake up.”

In the New York City suburbs, Josh Gottheimer has what he believes is an extra advantage running against Rep. Scott Garrett: New Jersey moderates are out of sync with Trump’s positions, but also a lot of people know Trump, have done business with him, know someone who’s done business with him, have stories about the unpaid bills they call the “Trump tax.”

“One guy told me he did all the legal and regulatory work on the casinos,” Gottheimer said. “He insisted on getting paid half upfront because of Trump’s reputation, and then at the end, Trump said, ‘I’m not paying the other half.’”

Yet all of that is taking place against a backdrop of uncertainty. House Democrats are worried about being forgotten amid the higher-profile White House and Senate races — or falling victim to ticket-splitting voters sticking with down-ballot Republicans because they still dislike Clinton. Then there is the prospect of being flooded by outside money re-routed from the presidential race.

And as they aim to nationalize races into a referendum on Trump, there is another concern: internal polls show many people planning to vote for the Republican nominee won’t admit it publicly, and aren’t as turned off to the rest of the GOP by his candidacy as they’d like.

For that reason, the “Trump model” leans instead on data from written questions, much of it from online questionnaires, with wording focused on whether voters like the Republican nominee and share his values rather than asking them to choose between him and Clinton.

Voters who say they’ll vote for Clinton but like Trump, for example, are voters the DCCC expects will likely stick with the Republican House candidate — and aren’t worth the investment of time or money in persuasion efforts.

“In each district, we will know: this crop of voters is most inclined to be swing voters who don’t like Trump and would vote for the House Democrat,” said DCCC executive director Kelly Ward.

Going into this cycle, House Democrats had expected to net fewer than 10 seats, barely enough to track back from their historically low current numbers. Trump’s already pushed that number into the mid-teens. Now they’re looking for ways to get closer to 20. (They’d need 29 to win the majority.)

Many House Republicans, though, point to the numbers Trump racked up in their districts during his primaries, seeing strength in swing and suburban areas that encourage them not to distance themselves, and have them thinking his coattails could put additional districts in play for them.

“These guys are staying one inning and projecting a baseball game,” quipped former DCCC chair and retiring Rep. Steve Israel, whose own Long Island district is seen as one where Trump might lift the Republican candidate (“That’s just crazy,” he said.)

Trump’s most likely to help elect Democrats in districts trending more diverse and more highly educated — and they’re counting on him being the factor that puts races in places like Florida and California over the top. But some people involved in races in places like Pennsylvania, Iowa and Minnesota are pushing back on the DCCC’s strategy.

“In their zeal to nationalize, they’re actually potentially hurting us in races they need to win,” said one Democratic operative working on multiple House races.

None of this is being discussed between the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Trump campaign directly. Unlike with Democrats, who are regularly communicating on strategy and data between Brooklyn and the DCCC, NRCC Executive Director Rob Simms says he continues to have no contact with the presidential campaign, coordinating instead with the Republican National Committee.

Nonetheless, Simms says he’s confident that his members will be able to stand on their own.

“The Democrats are stretching if if they think they’re going to merrily morph our members’ faces into the nominee’s and say this person is that person, so go vote for the Democrat,” Simms said. “They’re severely underselling not just the intelligence of the voters in the district, but the work the members have done in the district.”

Ward, meanwhile, is in regular contact with a Clinton campaign that’s stocked with DCCC alumni, including campaign manager Robby Mook, who preceded her as executive director during the 2012 cycle, political engagement director Marlon Marshall and his deputy Brynne Craig, as well as deputy press secretary Jesse Ferguson and deputy rapid response director Josh Schwerin, both of whom did tours as DCCC press secretary.

Ward projects that 60-70 seats are now in play with Trump, as opposed to the 40-50 they had been expecting. She predicts they could be up to 70-80 after the Republican convention.

Others who’ve drilled down on the races see a much narrower battlefield, and argue that recruiting issues left Democrats out of contention or behind in districts where the Trump factor might have made the race more competitive.

But with Trump’s name coming up all the time in focus groups, the DCCC continues to keep pushing candidates to campaign on the notion that House Republicans all have the same positions as the nominee. The committee wants its candidates to hold GOP opponents to account for sticking with him every time he says something offensive, especially when they condemn the comment themselves.

(Significant resources are being poured into trying to corner House Republicans into being asked about Trump by trackers, reporters and whoever else they can muster).

“It feels so icky: to a voter, they are hearing, ‘I know he’s bad, but I’m standing with him anyway,’” Ward said.

The money disadvantage, Democrats think, might be mitigated by coordinated campaigns, since most of their top targeted districts overlap with presidential and Senate battlegrounds.

“Right now we have a wind,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has been saying at donor meetings. “We have to exploit that wind for as long as we have the wind.”