The era of President Trump has brought a flood of new Democratic candidates running for House seats, right as the party looks to channel Trump backlash into a House majority.
As of Tuesday, 489 new Democratic candidates had registered House bids with the Federal Election Commission. That number vastly outpaces new candidate registrations in every other House cycle since 2009.
{mosads}Many Democrats are frustrated by four straight losses in contested special elections, including a high-profile, expensive defeat in Georgia on Tuesday. But they believe that their candidate numbers show the enthusiasm needed to take back the House is out there.
“People are finally realizing that if they want to fix something, they have to do it themselves,” said Amanda Litman, a co-founder of the Democratic recruitment group Run for Something.
That group brings together a handful of top Democratic operatives to help find and train new Democratic candidates for offices up and down the ballot.
While Republicans point to the Democratic failure to flip Georgia’s 6th District on Tuesday as proof that Democrats don’t have a path to a House majority, Litman told The Hill that she believes the steady trend of losing Democratic candidates who nevertheless outperformed in red districts could still promise a “Democratic wave.”
A snapshot of recent FEC data shows a dramatic uptick in filings by new Democratic House candidates when compared to this point in the last four election cycles.
At this point in 2015, 190 new Democratic House candidates had already filed their bids. In the four election cycles between 2009 and 2015, an average of 179 new candidates had filed by this point in the cycle.
Republicans are seeing a record number of new candidates file over the same time period too, albeit at a level far below the Democrats. As of Monday, 256 new Republican candidates have launched bids.
Since Republicans hold the majority, Democrats have more seats to target. But Republicans have previously outpaced Democrats in the past three election cycles when it comes to new candidate registration, even though the GOP held the House majority.
A high number of candidates doesn’t necessarily guarantee electoral victory, especially for Democrats. Not only has history not served them well with a glut of candidates, but quantity does not necessarily mean quality.
The party’s previous high at this point in the calendar came in 2013, when the Democrats had 220 new candidates registered ahead of the 2014 midterm elections. The party lost 13 House seats that year.
Ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, when the Democratic Party lost 63 seats and control of the House, the party had 221 new candidates by mid-June of 2009.
But Democrats say that the high number of new candidates — more than double their number of candidates at this point in the 2014 cycle — stands as more proof that Democratic enthusiasm is strong in the age of Trump.
They point to crumbling special election margins in once-safe Republican seats, big Democratic leads on generic ballot polls, a president whose approval rating hovers around 40 percent and a GOP healthcare bill that’s even less popular as factors that will only boost their candidates in 2018.
“The energy is being driven in part by Trump, but also by the damaging things that House Republicans are doing to folks who are struggling right now,” said Doug Thornell, a former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee aide.
“They were expecting a change and deals to get done and legislation to move and bills to be signed. None of that has happened.”
With a limited number of seats up for grabs, the major uptick in new candidates will translate into crowded primaries between little-known candidates.
Reps. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and John Faso (R-N.Y.), for example, each have eight Democratic challengers eager to face them after the primary.
And Reps. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) and Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) both have six Democratic candidates trying to take their seats.
The crowd increases the potential for dramatic primaries that could reignite tensions between the party’s more liberal and moderate factions. That’s welcome news for Republicans, who are carefully watching the Democratic primary field ahead of the 2018 midterms.
“The high recruitment numbers for Democrats are a double-edged sword,” said one House Republican strategist
involved in a race targeted by Democrats.
“It clearly shows increased enthusiasm, but also makes brutal and expensive primaries far more likely that could leave the eventual Democratic nominees damaged and broke by the time they general elections start.”
Crowded primaries could also create another problem — the prospect that a fringe candidate can win a primary after more electable candidates split the rest of the vote, dooming the party for the general election.
That same problem once bedeviled the GOP establishment. In one example, Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle beat out two establishment-backed foes in Nevada’s 2010 Senate primary, but had trouble unifying the party around her candidacy to knock off then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
But that could become a Democratic problem too, depending on how some of these primary fields shake out.
“Democrats also have to be extremely worried that increased polarization and multi-way primaries will result in extreme, far-left nominees that have no chance of winning moderate districts,” the GOP House source added.
But most Democrats don’t appear concerned about the effects of a primary, with those who spoke with The Hill arguing that primaries will energize the Democratic base behind general election nominees.
“There may be some instances of really bloody primaries, but that’s the nature of politics,” Thornell said.
“At the end of the day, whoever makes it into the general will be better off having gone through a primary.”