No District Is Off the Table: Health Vote Could Put House in Play

[riversedge]

Lots and lots of work to do next year and a half folks.




‘No District Is Off the Table’: Health Vote Could Put House in Play


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/us/politics/health-care-vote.html?_r=0


Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns
8-10 minutes

All seven of the House Republicans from California who represent districts that Mr. Trump lost voted for the bill, a collective act of political audacity in a state simmering with anger toward the president. While Mrs. Clinton won Representative Carlos Curbelo’s Miami district by 16 percentage points, he also voted yes. And other Republican lawmakers who represent districts that decisively rejected Mr. Trump, like Mr. Roskam and Martha E. McSally of Arizona, supported the measure.

All told, 80 House Republicans from districts Mr. Trump carried by 55 percent or less voted for the health law’s repeal. “Any Republican member of Congress in a seat that the president won by less than 10 points who isn’t concerned needs to be concerned,” said Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster.
....................................

“We have to keep our own base excited because off-year elections are about the base,” said Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio, who oversees the House campaign arm. “We need to show them accomplishments.”

Republicans have their own opportunities in a scrambled House map, and they are aggressively recruiting in districts held by Democrats that Mr. Trump won or narrowly lost, including those represented by Rick Nolan and Tim Walz in Minnesota, Matt Cartwright in Pennsylvania and Jacky Rosen in Nevada. And many of the Republicans facing arduous re-election campaigns are among the most battle-tested.

Still, the Republican Party faces daunting challenges in 2018. Midterm elections are traditionally difficult for a party with full control of the government, even more so when it is bearing the burden of an unpopular or polarizing president. And Mr. Trump is struggling with disapproval ratings unseen this early in the administration of any other modern American president.

....................

[dalton99a]

1. Kick.