Campaign Report — Last primaries of the year set for Tuesday

Welcome to The Hill’s Campaign Report, tracking all things related to the 2022 midterm elections. You can expect this newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday leading up to November’s election.   

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Delaware, New Hampshire, Rhode Island still to vote

Most campaigns have now shifted gears into general election mode — but not all of them.

Voters in Delaware, New Hampshire and Rhode Island will be among the last to weigh in on their primaries next Tuesday.

Next week’s primaries feature two Republicans fighting it out to advance to a competitive Senate race in New Hampshire, the set up for a likely rematch between Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D) and Republican candidate Lee Murphy for Delaware’s lone House seat and a crowded Democratic primary to take on Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee (D).

Here’s a look ahead at some of the races we’re watching next week:

In New Hampshire: One of the most closely watched races next week will be the GOP Senate primary to take on Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), who is fighting for a second term after she won her first election in 2016 by about a tenth of a percentage point.

Recent polling shows the leading GOP contender as retired Army Gen. Don Bolduc, who previously ran in the GOP primary to take on Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) in 2020. Bolduc lost that primary to Corky Messner (R), but Shaheen won her reelection by a comfortable margin of 15 percentage points.

• What to watch for: Whether former President Trump makes a last-minute endorsement in the GOP primary. So far, the former president hasn’t waded in officially, but he has previously praised Bolduc.
  
• Republicans and Democrats are spending money to target state Senate President Chuck Morse (R). CNN is reporting that some Republicans have concerns about Bolduc’s general election chances, spending money instead to boost Morse. Meanwhile, CQ RollCall is also reporting that Democrats are wading into the race by running negative ads against Morse, which could be seen as an effort to boost Bolduc.
  
• The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the seat as “lean Democrat.”

Also keep an eye on the state’s two House seats as crowded GOP fields vie for the chance to take on Reps. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) and Ann Kuster (D-N.H.). Both seats have been rated as “toss ups” by Cook Political Report. 

• Flashback: Pappas, who was first elected in 2018, last won his reelection in 2020 by 5 percentage points. Kuster, who was first elected in 2012, won her House bid in 2020 by 10 points.

Over in Delaware: The primaries for Delaware’s at-large congressional district have largely been decided given that Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D) is running for reelection against only one Republican, Lee Murphy. But while this primary may be less suspenseful, the general election matchup is one to watch given that the two previously went head to head in 2020. Murphy lost that race by a 17-percentage point margin.

In Rhode Island: Four Democrats are challenging Democratic Gov. Dan McKee in the gubernatorial primary next week, including state Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, former state Secretary of State Matt Brown, former CVS executive Helena Foulkes and physician Luis Daniel Muñoz.

On the Republican side, candidates include Jonathan Riccitelli and Ashley Kalus. Cook Political Report rates the seat “solid Democrat.”

Also keep an eye out for Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District, which was left open by Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) after he announced earlier this year that he wouldn’t be seeking reelection.

Five Democrats are looking to grab the seat, which Cook Political Report rates as a “toss up”:

Refugee Dream Center founder Omar Bah, small business owner Joy Fox, General Treasurer Seth Magaziner, former director of the Peace Corps Response Sarah Morgenthau and former state lawmaker David Segal.

Why Republicans are still favored to win the House

Democrats have seized political momentum over the past two months. They passed major legislation, won hotly contested special elections and rallied voters around the fight over abortion rights.

They still face long odds in their bid to hold on to their House majority.

That’s for a few reasons:

Redistricting: Republicans didn’t get the kind of ironclad congressional maps that they had hoped for, but, accounting for incumbency, they still came out on top. Courts threw out Democratic gerrymanders in states like New York and Maryland, while Republicans made big gains in states like Florida, where a map proposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) created four new GOP-leaning House seats. 

Overall, Republicans appear likely to gain three or four seats thanks to redistricting alone. And given that they only need to net five seats to recapture control of the House this year, the redistricting outcome puts them most of the way there.

Retirements: Thirty-one House Democrats are foregoing reelection this year. Some of them are simply running for other offices, while others are leaving electoral politics altogether. It’s not unusual for members from the president’s party to leave the House ahead of midterm elections. But the historic number of Democratic retirements this year has created a handful of openings that Republicans are hoping to take advantage of.

Among the seats being targeted by the GOP this year is Pennsylvania’s 17th District. The seat was left open after Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) decided to seek the state’s Democratic Senate nomination. Likewise, Rep. Cheri Bustos’ (D-Ill.) retirement has left Illinois’s 17th District up for grabs. 

National environment: While things have improved for Democrats in recent months, there’s still a lot for them to worry about. President Biden’s approval rating remains underwater and inflation is still at its highest level in decades. There are also lingering concerns that the U.S. may be creeping closer to an economic recession. 

Democrats also face the challenge of retaining their momentum for the next two months — a particularly difficult task in a rapidly changing political environment.

History: It’s one of the most consistent trends in American politics: the party of the president almost always loses ground in Congress in midterm elections. Since the end of World War II, only two midterm cycles have seen the president’s party gain seats in the House — in 1998 and 2002. 

Exactly why it’s so rare for the president’s party to come out on top in the midterms is up for debate. It could be that the president’s supporters are simply less motivated to vote or that Americans are inclined to view midterms as a referendum on the party in power. Either way, overcoming historical precedent won’t be easy for Democrats this year.

POLL WATCH

President Biden holds a 6-percentage point lead over former President Trump among registered voters in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, according to a Yahoo News-YouGov poll.

The poll, which was released on Wednesday, shows Biden receiving support from 48 percent of registered voters compared to Trump with 42 percent. The polling comes while Biden’s approval rating has still remained under 50 percent, though it has seen a moderate increase recently.

AD WATCH

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) released a new ad on Thursday targeting Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-Ariz.), tying him to President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

“Tom O’Halleran: 100 percent with Biden. One hundred percent with Pelosi. Zero percent with you,” a narrator says in part of the 30-second ad, called “Brick By Brick.” 

O’Halleran is fighting for reelection in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, which the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates as “likely Republican.”

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading and check out The Hill’s Campaign page for the latest news and coverage. See you next week. 

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