house republicans were buoyed by record-breaking fundraising from speaker paul ryan and an emphasis on hyper-local strategy.  | getty democrats and republicans built their campaigns around donald trump's presence, but he ended up having more strength than anyone imagined. by theodoric meyer and rachael bade 11/09/16 05:50 am est in mid-october, mike shields, the president of house republicans<u+2019> biggest super pac, gathered his top advisers to discuss a worrying round of poll results in battleground districts <u+2014> and how to protect gop members of congress from a floundering donald trump. for the first time all year, republican polls showed their house candidates sinking as trump<u+2019>s numbers declined rapidly, following a lackluster first presidential debate, a feud with a beauty queen, and worst of all, the release of a decade-old tape in which trump described sexually assaulting women. story continued below shields and his advisers drew up plans to inject $10 million into second-tier house battlegrounds, to keep them from becoming casualties of trump<u+2019>s unpopularity. but in the end, trump appears to have lifted congressional republicans with him in many places <u+2014> and along with his stronger performance, backlash against trump<u+2019>s republican ticket-mates did not emerge in critical mass. trump<u+2019>s shocking presidential win ultimately helped limit republican losses to the single digits and preserve a majority that, while not quite as hefty as this year<u+2019>s, will still be quite large by historical standards. house republicans expected to be buoyed by record-breaking fundraising from speaker paul ryan and an emphasis on hyper-local strategy. but combined with the lift from trump's unexpected win, it was about as good of a night as the house gop could have imagined. "we didn't know if it was a trend or it would get better," shields said. and "when you're in the first week of october, you don't have any time to wait and find out." trump<u+2019>s victory was doubly painful for house democrats, who built their strategy this cycle counting on a resounding clinton win and invested millions of dollars in tying house republicans to their historically unpopular presidential nominee, who never held a consistent public polling lead over hillary clinton. by john bresnahan <u+201c>the house races are directly tied to the strength of secretary clinton,<u+201d> democratic congressional campaign committee chairman ben ray lujan told politico last month. <u+201c>the better that secretary clinton does, the more seats we<u+2019>ll pick up.<u+201d> clinton<u+2019>s surprise defeat on tuesday smashed democrats<u+2019> hopes to cut deep into republicans<u+2019> massive house majority. while they knocked off a handful of republican incumbents, democrats will almost certainly net fewer than 10 seats <u+2014> leaving them in a comparable position to where they were after the 2010 republican wave election. trump<u+2019>s upset victory was an especially large rebuke to house democrats, who had literally bet the house on a strategy of tying congressional republicans to trump. while democrats avoided running such ads in a few rural districts where it seemed likely trump would win, they employed the strategy in dozens of battleground districts. house majority pac, democrats<u+2019> flagship super pac in house races, paid for polling after the <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> tape on the best way to rope republicans to trump. <u+201c>our objective was to figure out how to convince voters that they just couldn<u+2019>t vote republican this year, not with someone like donald trump leading the party and being backed up by a bunch of house republicans who didn<u+2019>t have the courage to stand up to him when it mattered,<u+201d> ali lapp, who runs the super pac, wrote in an email on tuesday afternoon. <u+201c>our research showed that this idea really resonated with swing voters.<u+201d> the super pac shelled out $4.7 million last week on last-minute tv ads tying eight gop candidates to trump. but all eight republicans won their races on tuesday, most of them by double digits. * * * for most of the year, house democrats viewed trump as a gift. they entered 2016 facing tough odds and a 30-seat republican majority that many figured was impenetrable thanks to redistricting. but democrats' outlook began to shift in january, ahead of the iowa caucuses, as the possibility that trump or ted cruz could win the republican nomination became more real. both were unpopular with general election voters, and they would badly hurt house republicans' chances, rep. ben ray luj<u+00e1>n (d-n.m.), the democratic congressional campaign committee's chairman, believed. after trump won the florida primary in march, knocking marco rubio out of the presidential race, the dccc made a last-minute push to lure top-shelf candidates into house districts, with the promise that trump would collapse republican support. dccc recruitment meetings, which had more than a few empty chairs for much of the election cycle, started overflowing with interest until there was only standing room, said rep. cheri bustos, the vice chairwoman of the dccc's recruitment committee. democrats focused on districts with high numbers of hispanic voters and highly educated, affluent whites <u+2014> two groups especially turned off by trump, polling showed. in march, after dccc polling showed hillary clinton beating trump by more than 20 points in gop rep. erik paulsen<u+2019>s district outside minnesota<u+2019>s twin cities, committee members called state sen. terri bonoff <u+2014> a recruit house democrats had been trying to entice into a congressional run for years <u+2014> to tell her 2016 was her best chance. she filed to run in may and quickly raised more than $600,000. they also snagged a top recruit in central florida, where redistricting rendered 12-term gop rep. john mica vulnerable to backlash from diverse voters. rep. denny heck, the chairman of the dccc<u+2019>s recruitment committee, flew to orlando in march to scout potential candidates and met with stephanie murphy, a young, dynamic former defense department staffer, at a coffee shop to talk potential recruits. he liked the daughter of vietnamese refugees so much that he asked her, a registered non-party affiliate, to run instead. 2016 by shane goldmacher and ben schreckinger "it was quite literally about 90 seconds into that conversation that i realized i was sitting across the table from the best conceivable candidate and broached the subject with her," heck said. "she demurred." three months later, after trump became the gop nominee, murphy changed her mind <u+2014> and her party registration <u+2014> and jumped in the race. murphy became one of house democrats<u+2019> few bright spots on election night, knocking off mica in a close race. but for all their recruitment efforts, democrats ran into problems. for one, they failed to land solid candidates in districts that could have been hard-fought battlegrounds this fall. they had no one to take on rep. tom macarthur, for example, a new jersey republican in a district split nearly evenly between both parties. two gop-held districts in the philadelphia suburbs went unchallenged because of democratic recruiting problems. and ohio, where state republicans limited democratic opportunities via gerrymandering this decade, went without a serious democratic challenge for any districts for a second consecutive election. that problem was compounded by candidate problems in a few key democratic target districts. gop rep. carlos curbelo easily survived in the miami area despite trump<u+2019>s struggles there <u+2014> partly because democrats were saddled with scandal-ridden ex-rep. joe garcia instead of the dccc-backed annette taddeo, who lost her primary. <u+201c>these are races that should be tough fights in presidential years, where they don<u+2019>t have credible candidates running,<u+201d> said nrcc communications director katie martin. martin speculated that a lot of it probably had to do with how toxic hillary clinton turned out to be. dccc at the beginning the cycle claimed they<u+2019>d have an amazing recruitment because <u+201c>everyone is going to ride on hillary clinton<u+2019>s coattails,<u+201d> she mimicked. <u+201c>that didn<u+2019>t happen. there is no such thing as <u+2018>hillary<u+2019>s coattails,<u+2019><u+201d> she snarked. <u+201c>this notion that hillary clinton was the beacon of hope for the democratic party is wrong.<u+201d> * * * republicans early on realized they could be in trouble with trump at the top of the ticket <u+2014> especially with democrats<u+2019> trying to make them mini-trumps. so they set to employ a strategy to separate themselves from his toxic words. speaker ryan, a policy wonk at heart, introduced his <u+201c>better way<u+201d> policy agenda over the summer, which one senior republican welcomed as a <u+201c>shield<u+201d> from the top of the ticket. it allowed republicans to stand for something instead and talk about the issues <u+2014> which were being totally drowned out by the presidential field. ryan and nrcc chairman greg walden (r-ore.) also advised lawmakers to go local, making their races about issues their communities care about and talking up their legislative accomplishments. as part of that, majority leader kevin mccarthy (r-calif.), who controls the floor schedule, made it a point to ensure vulnerable freshman got their bills passed on the hill. president barack obama even signed some into law, a rarity for freshmen lawmakers who lack seniority. the plan produced tangible results. at the texas border, vulnerable gop rep. will hurd could tout legislative achievements helping border patrol agents and cybersecurity work. local newspapers that did not back hurd in 2014 gave him full-throated endorsements in 2016, against the same democratic candidate, because of those very bills. hurd ended up defeating former democratic rep. pete gallego in the type of latino-heavy district that democrats believed would be driven out of the gop coalition by trump. off message by glenn thrush in his predominantly hispanic-district in florida, curbelo took every opportunity to tout bills helping the kids of immigrants learn english and efforts to protect the everglades. his opponent on the other hand, he once quipped in an interview, <u+201c>went to congress for two years and he passed one bill to name a post office.<u+201d> and in new york, freshman rep. john katko did the same. insiders say he<u+2019>s passed the most bills of any freshman in congress in recent years, including one that battles the heroin epidemic claiming the lives of thousands in districts like his. he won by more than 20 points. <u+201c>being an effective member of congress is the best way to get reelected, and that<u+2019>s what they<u+2019>ve done,<u+201d> said rep. steve stivers, an nrcc deputy chairman charged with protecting the party<u+2019>s most vulnerable members. <u+201c>the leadership, including paul ryan, were very clear to a lot of members: don<u+2019>t let anybody try to tie you to anybody else; make it about you. be able to talk about what you<u+2019>ve done for your communities <u+2026> i think that<u+2019>s a pretty important part of why we were successful.<u+201d> <u+201c>nobody wants a one-trick pony, but that<u+2019>s all the dccc had on any of our guys: trump,<u+201d> stivers said. and in the end, he won. by bill scher by thomas wright by joshua zeitz by jack shafer
how republicans held the house - politico
theodoric meyer rachael bade john bresnahan shane goldmacher ben schreckinger jack shafer