Taking it into Trump territory: Democrats target South in 2020 strategy

WASHINGTON – Looking to fortify their 2018 victories and keep control of the House in 2020, national Democrats are gunning for districts in the "new frontier" – areas of the South where President Donald Trump is popular.

Of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's 2020 target list, 36 percent of the seats are in Southern states, including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas. That's up from 24 percent in 2018.

“We are pushing into once-deep Republican country," said Cole Leiter, a campaign committee spokesman. 

Here's how Democrats plan to tackle the 2020 congressional elections and how Republicans plan to defend their traditional turf:

Moving to the suburbs

Many of the battles are expected to play out in suburban districts that weren’t considered competitive a decade ago. The districts have become more affluent and more diverse and have an increasingly highly educated population.

“Republicans do have a lock on the rural South, save for several heavily African-American areas,’’ said David Wasserman, U.S. House editor at the Cook Political Report. “But they’re backsliding in southern suburbs.”

Capitalizing on demographics

The Democratic shift to the South is in part a result of the "power of demographics," said Adolphus Belk Jr., professor of political science and African American studies at Winthrop University.

He pointed to the migration of African-Americans back to the South and the influx of Gen Xers leaving the Midwest and Northeast for jobs and a lower cost of living.  

The South has the largest concentration of African-Americans, who lean strongly Democratic.

“These red states are starting to turn purple," said Belk, noting that some districts in red states were already blue. "It means that (Democrats) can be competitive in places that before they would have lost."

Corralling Texas voters

The Democratic committee has staked a claim to six districts in Texas, despite five of them being won by Trump in 2016.

Democrats are banking on wins like the one in November when Texas Democrat Colin Allred defeated GOP Rep. Pete Sessions. Sessions had represented the 32nd Congressional District since 2003. Democrat Hillary Clinton narrowly won the district in 2016.

“Texas kind of tells the larger story of this battlefield," said Leiter, adding that several of those districts are “shifting toward us.”

Of the 38 members of the Texas congressional delegation, just 13 are Democrats.

Making the most of Trump fatigue

Some Southern voters, particularly in Texas, have drifted away from Republican candidates because of a lack of enthusiasm for Trump, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

“I think the hope for Democrats is that maybe with more resources from the national party – and potentially a national environment where the president may be something of a drag in those districts – that the Democrats can make further inroads in Texas," said Kondik, citing Democrat Beto O’Rourke's unsuccessful but close effort to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in the state last year.

GOP will play up the 'extreme'

Republicans, meanwhile, plan to focus on retaking seats they lost, including South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, where Democrat Joe Cunningham beat Republican Kate Arrington last fall. A Democrat hadn't won that seat in nearly 40 years.

“We think we can flip them back to Republican seats, especially with all the extreme ideas that Democrats are throwing out there," said Camille Gallo, regional press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Republicans plan to highlight Democratic proposals, including the Green New Deal, Medicare for all and immigration policies that allow “open borders."

“Republicans' priority of targets start with the 31 Democrats sitting in Trump districts," Wasserman said.

Recapturing the Trump districts

Of the 33 seats on the Democrats' target list, 21 are in districts Republicans won by 5 percentage points or less in 2018. Only three were won by Clinton in 2016. 

Several seats are in districts Democrats came close to capturing in 2018.

Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, called the Democrats' campaign committee list "interesting."

“Many of the members they listed are some of our strongest members of Congress with fantastic voting records and who are people who I think the voters back home really appreciate,” he said. “It seems early to be doing that. It seems pretty aggressive, but that’s OK. I think we’re going to be well-prepared for the next election cycle in 2020. We’re gearing up and preparing our troops as well."

What about turnout?

Some Democratic lawmakers, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, have long complained that the national party largely ignored the South. Last election cycle, the caucus pressed the Democratic campaign committee to focus more on the region.

“This traditional Democratic forfeiting in the South and this traditional Democratic message doesn’t work," Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., former chairman of the caucus, said then.

Richmond said last week that he expects Democrats to continue their push in the South.

“But the difficulty this election cycle – and I hate to be the skunk at the party – (is) we had a turnout advantage last time because we were able to get low-propensity voters to vote," he said, attributing higher turnout to get-out-the vote efforts led by the caucus. “In two years it will be a presidential. There will be no turnout advantage."

Contributing: Maureen Groppe

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