Republicans across the country in what were supposed to be safe districts—in what were carefully drawn by Republicans to be safe districts—are finding themselves in tight races this year. Take Rep. Steve Chabot, in Ohio’s 1st Congressional District. Donald Trump narrowly won the district in 2016, but it’s one of just two Republican-held House districts in Ohio where Trump got a lower share of the vote than Mitt Romney did in 2012. The other such district? That would be the 12th, where last week’s special election still hasn’t been officially called, though Republican Troy Balderson has a narrow lead.
Incumbents like Chabot, who haven’t faced real races since Republican-controlled redistricting gave them their supposed-to-be-safe seats, can face trouble realizing they face a serious challenge and responding effectively:
Another national Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly, had a harsher assessment: "The question is, can some of these incumbents, including Chabot, be defossilized?"
Meanwhile, their Democratic challengers—like Aftab Pureval, the clerk of courts in Cincinnati’s Hamilton County taking on Chabot—are hungry, running hard, and backed by anti-Trump enthusiasm. Those are the ingredients for a blue wave. We have 77 days to put it together.
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