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    Democratic Group to Spend $186 Million Aiming to Win Back House Majority

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    House Majority PAC, the Democratic super PAC allied with Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House minority leader, said on Sunday that it would spend $186 million on television and digital advertisements for this year’s elections — the largest early investment in the group’s history.The hefty expenditure will cover 58 media markets in 45 districts, targeting Republican seats in districts that President Biden carried in 2020 as well as Democratic seats in districts that former President Donald J. Trump won. As part of that spending plan, $40 million will go toward digital advertisements, the group said on Sunday. Details of the ad buy were first shared with CNN.In an interview on Sunday, the House Majority PAC president, Mike Smith, described the group’s plan for this election year as “an offensive strategy.” Democrats need to win just four seats to clinch a House majority, and they have said that doing so depends on races in New York and California. The group is spending the most in those states to unseat vulnerable Republican freshmen and to maintain the ample — and costly — messaging needed to break through to voters.“The significant investment is the seriousness of which we are taking this election,” Mr. Smith said. “The core districts that are going to make or break whether or not Democrats win or lose the majority this fall are kind of consolidated, and a lot of them take place in the most expensive media markets in the country.”Mr. Smith also noted that the group had invested early in advertisements in states like Ohio, Montana and Michigan, where there are a handful of competitive U.S. Senate races and tight margins for the presidential race. It is particularly focused on appealing to voters in districts with substantial Black, Hispanic or Asian American populations, in addition to swing districts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Democrats Put Early Money on New York to Retake the House

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      Democrats’ House super PAC plans to spend $45 million trying to flip as many as six seats Republicans won in 2022. It could set off a major spending contest.New York almost single-handedly cost Democrats their House majority in last fall’s midterm elections. Now, a leading Democratic group is preparing to pour record sums into the state, in hopes it can deliver the party back to power next year.House Majority PAC, the main super PAC aligned with congressional Democrats, will unveil a first-of-its-kind, $45 million fund this week dedicated to winning back four seats Republicans flipped in New York, and targeting two other competitive districts. Republicans currently control the chamber by only a five-seat margin.The planned Democratic infusion would dwarf outside spending in the state in recent election cycles, and reflects just how central traditionally blue New York has become to the national House battlefield for both parties. Of the 18 districts nationwide that President Biden won in 2020 that are now represented by Republicans, New York is home to six.“The path to the majority runs through New York,” Mike Smith, the group’s president, said in an interview outlining its plans. “It’s not just us seeing it. It is the Republican Party seeing it. It’s every donor around the country seeing it.”The announcement comes amid bitter Democratic infighting over how to regroup from last year’s whiplash elections. While the party outperformed expectations nationally, New York was a glaring outlier. On Election Day, Republicans here harnessed fears about rising crime and one-party Democratic rule to run a nearly clean sweep through competitive districts and secure their majority.Mr. Smith said his group was still raising the funds, but planned to move unusually early in the election cycle to try to reshape how voters view those six newly elected Republicans, who represent districts in Long Island, the Hudson Valley and Syracuse. Many of them succeeded in portraying themselves as common sense moderates in suburban territory, but they will enter a presidential election year, when Democrats historically turn out in higher numbers, as among the most endangered Republicans in the country.Among Democrats’ best cudgels may be one of those freshmen, Representative George Santos, the Republican who flipped a suburban Long Island seat only to watch his résumé unravel into a series of elaborate lies and potential frauds.Lawmakers called for the expulsion of Representative George Santos, who flipped a suburban Long Island seat, earlier this month.Kenny Holston/The New York Times“These freshman Republicans have no real track record to run on other than what’s happening in the national space,” Mr. Smith said. “And that’s George Santos, Kevin McCarthy, Marjorie Taylor Greene and the most extreme elements.”That effort is almost certain to set off a major spending war with Republicans, whose main super PAC has consistently out-raised and outspent House Majority PAC nationally. In New York, the Democratic group spent around $13 million last year, while Republicans’ Congressional Leadership Fund pumped in at least $21 million.Unlike traditional candidates or party committees, dark money groups can raise and spend unlimited sums of money.The Congressional Leadership Fund has yet to detail its strategy for 2024. But on Tuesday, several vulnerable House Republicans — Mr. Santos not among them — established a new joint fund-raising committee named “New York Majority Makers,” designed to help bundle smaller contributions to protect their seats.And in a sign of their significance to party leaders, Speaker Kevin McCarthy was scheduled to make an early fund-raising stop New York in March. The event will help at least one at-risk incumbent build an early fund-raising advantage while Democrats are still recruiting challengers.Cash is only one factor that could tip the balance of power. To be successful, Democrats will also have to revamp their own image in certain parts of New York where voters rejected them last fall.Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the party’s new House leader, has called for a careful review of what went wrong. But for now, the party’s progressive and moderate wings have vastly different prescriptions on how to address concerns about public safety and rising living costs that are especially acute here. The party’s left flank has spent months agitating to remove the more moderate chairman of the state party, Jay Jacobs, who they believe has overseen a moribund organization.In the interview, Mr. Smith said that Democrats had let Republican candidates dominate the conversation around crime last year, which “definitely hurt us.”“There is no getting around the top of the ticket concerns,” he said, referring to the state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, who waited until the campaign’s final weeks to aggressively counter Republicans’ attacks on the issue and won by a narrower than expected margin. “That is a big part of how we got to where we are today.”Still, at least on paper, many of the districts could easily change hands in a presidential election year, when Democrats historically turn out in higher numbers.In the suburbs of Westchester and Rockland counties, Representative Michael Lawler defeated his Democratic opponent by less than a percentage point last fall by running as a moderate focused on issues like crime and inflation. Now, he has to win another term in a district that Mr. Biden won by 10 points in 2020 and where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans three to two.Representative Anthony D’Esposito, another relative centrist, faces similarly daunting numbers on the South Shore of Long Island, where a wave of Republican enthusiasm — and depressed turnout by Black voters — helped him narrowly win a district Mr. Biden won by 14 points.Representative Anthony D’Esposito, a Republican who narrowly won a House race on the South Shore of Long Island, may face a tougher race in 2024.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesRepresentatives Brandon Williams and Marc Molinaro will be defending Democratic-leaning districts around Syracuse and in the Hudson Valley. Representative Nick LaLota likely faces an easier race on the East End of Long Island, which narrowly voted for Mr. Biden but has been friendly ground to Republican congressional candidates for a decade now.And then there is Mr. Santos, who has not indicated clearly whether he will seek a second term in a district that Mr. Biden won by eight points. Nearly every other New York Republican freshman has called on him to resign, and local party leaders have vowed to back a primary challenger. More

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      Democrats Aid Far-Right Candidate Against Republican Who Backed Impeachment

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      The House Democrats’ official campaign arm is stepping into a Western Michigan Republican primary to elevate a candidate endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump against one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him.The $425,000 advertising run is the latest in a slew of Democratic efforts to draw attention to far-right candidates, hoping that they will be easier to beat in November than more mainstream Republicans. But in this case, it could also be seen as a slap to Representative Peter Meijer, the incumbent in the Grand Rapids-area district who braved blowback from his own party over his vote to impeach Mr. Trump and is now fighting skulduggery from the right and the left.The ad, which will begin airing on Tuesday and was openly cut and funded by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, proclaims that John Gibbs, who is challenging Mr. Meijer, is “too conservative” for West Michigan. But in tone and content, it is clearly meant to appeal to pro-Trump voters in the Aug. 2 Republican primary, hailing Mr. Gibbs as “handpicked by Trump to run for Congress,” buffing his bona fides as an aide in the Trump administration and promising that he would push “that same conservative agenda in Congress,” including a hard line against illegal immigration and a stand for “patriotic education.”It is similar to an advertisement run by the House Democratic super PAC that unsuccessfully tried to bolster a pro-Trump candidate against Representative David Valadao in California, another of the 10 Republicans who voted for impeachment. That ad infuriated even some Democrats.By law, elected Democrats must stay at arm’s length from the super PAC, known as the House Majority PAC, that was responsible for the ad in Mr. Valadao’s race. But with the Gibbs ad, the campaign committee responsible for it is run by a member of Democratic leadership, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, and the group is far more integrated into official actions.The Democratic campaign committee refused to comment on the advertisement. But the intent was clear. Mr. Meijer’s redrawn district has shifted from one that narrowly voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 to one that President Biden would have carried by nine percentage points.The tone of the current ad is bright, but if Mr. Gibbs were to win the primary, the next effort from Democrats is likely to be considerably darker. Mr. Gibbs, who was an aide to former Housing Secretary Ben Carson, could not win confirmation in 2020 to direct Mr. Trump’s Office of Personnel Management over comments he made accusing Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, of taking part in a “Satanic ritual,” and calling Democrats the party of “‘Islam, gender-bending, anti-police, ‘u racist!’”More recently, Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Meijer clashed over the legitimacy of Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory, which Mr. Gibbs baselessly called “simply mathematically impossible.”In Pennsylvania, the state’s Democratic Party singled out State Senator Doug Mastriano during his successful quest for the Republican nomination for governor, despite his propagation of false claims about the 2020 election and his presence in Washington during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Polling last month showed that Mr. Mastriano’s race against Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee, appeared to be a dead heat.Democrats believe that Michigan’s Third District, with its new boundaries, is one of the few in the country that they can take from a Republican, and they are willing to risk electing a Trump-backed election denier with a history of inflammatory remarks to make it easier on their favored candidate, Hillary Scholten.After Mr. Meijer’s impeachment vote, Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader, praised Mr. Meijer for what he called “a very impressive display of courage and integrity.”“Guess that doesn’t count for much when a marginally increased chance of flipping a House seat is on the table,” Mr. Meijer quipped in a text message on Monday. More

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      Democrats’ Risky Bet: Aid G.O.P. Extremists in Spring, Hoping to Beat Them in Fall

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      Even as national Democrats set off alarms over the threats posed by far-right Republican candidates, their campaign partners are pursuing an enormously risky strategy: promoting some of those same far-right candidates in G.O.P. primaries in hopes that extremists will be easier for Democrats to beat in November.These efforts — starkest in the Central Valley of California, where a Democratic campaign ad lashed Representative David Valadao, a Republican, for voting to impeach Donald J. Trump — have prompted angry finger-pointing and a debate within the party over the perils and wisdom of the strategy, especially in the middle of the Jan. 6 Committee’s hearings on the Capitol attack.The concern is obvious: In a year when soaring gasoline prices and disorienting inflation have crushed President Biden’s approval ratings, Republican candidates whom Democrats may deem unelectable could well win on the basis of their party affiliation alone.“I realize that this type of political gamesmanship has existed forever, but our country is in a very different place now than we were in previous cycles,” said Representative Kathleen Rice, Democrat of New York. “For these Democratic groups to throw money at raising up a person who they know wants to tear down this democracy is outrageous.”Republican targets asked how they were supposed to buck their leadership and take difficult votes if their erstwhile allies in the Democratic Party are lying in wait.“I voted the way I voted because I thought it was important,” Mr. Valadao said of his impeachment vote. “But to put us in a spot where we’re voting for these things and then try to use it as ammo against us in the campaigns, and put people that they potentially see as a threat to democracy in a position where they can become members of Congress, it tells me that they’re not serious about governing.”The Democratic effort extends well beyond Mr. Valadao’s race. Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party singled out State Senator Doug Mastriano during his successful quest for the Republican nomination for governor, despite his propagation of false claims about the 2020 election and his attendance at the Jan. 6 protest behind the White House that immediately preceded the Capitol riot.An advertisment from Asif Mahmood’s campaign includes a reference to the Republican candidate Greg Raths, who lost to the more moderate Republican Young Kim in the primary.Asif Mahmood for CongressIn Southern California, a Democratic candidate for the House, Asif Mahmood, flooded Orange County airwaves with advertisements that framed his run as a contest between him and an anti-abortion conservative, Greg Raths, aiding Mr. Raths by never mentioning the leading Republican in the race, Representative Young Kim, the incumbent and a much more moderate candidate. Instead, it highlighted Mr. Raths’ support for overturning Roe v. Wade and banning abortion and his affinity for “pro-Trump Republicans” — stances as likely to appeal to Republican primary voters as to rile up Democrats in a general election. (The effort did not succeed: Ms. Kim held off Mr. Raths and advanced to the November election against Mr. Mahmood.)And in Colorado, a shadowy new group called Democratic Colorado is spending nearly $1.5 million ahead of the state’s June 28 primary to broadcast the conservative views of State Representative Ron Hanks, who hopes to challenge Senator Michael Bennet, an incumbent Democrat. Mr. Hanks’s views would be widely shared by Republican primary voters. Left unmentioned — for now — were Mr. Hanks’s bragging about marching to the Capitol on Jan. 6, his false claim that those who attacked the Capitol were left-wing “antifa” and his baseless insistence that the 2020 election was stolen by President Biden.Understand the June 14 Primary ElectionsTakeaways: Republicans who embraced former President Donald J. Trump’s election lies did well in Nevada, while his allies had a mixed night in South Carolina. Here’s what else we learned.Winners and Losers: Here is a rundown of some of the most notable wins and losses.Election Deniers Prevail: Republicans who deny the 2020 election’s result are edging closer to wielding power over the next one.Nevada Races: Trump-inspired candidates captured key wins in the swing state, setting the stage for a number of tossup contests against embattled Democrats.Texas Special Election: Mayra Flores, a Republican, flipped a House seat in the Democratic stronghold of South Texas. Her win may only be temporary, however.Alvina Vasquez, a spokeswoman for Democratic Colorado, would not say who was funding the group and insisted there was nothing untoward about the ads.“It’s important to highlight who is running on the Republican side,” she said, adding, “The general election is around the corner.”State Representative Ron Hanks, a Republican running for Senate in Colorado, is being aided in the G.O.P. primary by a shadowy Democratic group.David Zalubowski/Associated PressBut Ms. Vasquez conceded that the group had only one target: Mr. Hanks, not the more moderate Republican in the primary, the businessman Joe O’Dea. The Bennet campaign declined to comment.Democrats involved acknowledge the game they are playing, but insist that they have one job — to preserve their party’s slender majority in the House — and that they are targeting only those races where extremist candidates cannot prevail in November.“House Majority PAC was founded on the mission of doing whatever it takes to secure a Democratic House Majority and in 2022, that’s what we will continue to do,” said Abby Curran Horrell, executive director of the committee, which is affiliated with Democratic leadership.The Pennsylvania attorney general, Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee for governor, defended his campaign’s advertisement declaring a win for Mr. Mastriano in the Republican governor’s primary as “a win for what Donald Trump stands for.”“What we did was start the general election campaign and demonstrate the clear contrast, the stark differences between he and I,” Mr. Shapiro said on CNN.But it is not clear that Democrats will be able to maintain control over what they may unleash, especially in a year when their party’s president is suffering through record low approval ratings and inflation has hit rates not seen in 40 years. A Suffolk University poll released on Wednesday found Mr. Shapiro running only 4 percentage points ahead of Mr. Mastriano in the state’s crucial governor’s race.No matter how self-assured Democratic insiders sound about their chances against extremist Republicans, the inherent danger of the playing-with-fire approach revives stomach-churning memories for some Democrats.After all, they also thought Mr. Trump’s nomination in 2016 was a surefire ticket to a Hillary Clinton presidency.Claire McCaskill, the former Democratic senator from Missouri, arguably created the modern genre of meddling in the other party’s nominating process, by running an ad in 2012 lifting the far-right congressman Todd Akin in the Republican Senate primary.But Ms. McCaskill said the intervening years had raised the stakes too high in all but a few races.“No one believed — including Donald Trump — that he would be elected president,” Ms. McCaskill said. “Campaigns need to be very sober about their decision-making. They need to be confident that they can prevail if the most extreme candidate is elevated to the nomination.”An ad paid for by House Democrats’ main political action committee compares the right-wing candidate Chris Mathys to David Valadao, who voted for impeachment.House Majority PACRepresentative Peter Meijer, Republican of Michigan, was especially incensed that the Democrats’ House Majority PAC had spent nearly $40,000 in the Bakersfield and Fresno, Calif., media markets airing an advertisement castigating Mr. Valadao for his impeachment vote, while promoting his opponent as “a true conservative.”Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterm races so important? More

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      A Democratic Super PAC’s Ad Buy Shows a Widening Battle for House Control

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      The Democrats’ House Majority PAC is spending nearly $102 million to reserve advertising time in 51 media markets, staking out a broad battlefield for the coming midterm elections.WASHINGTON — The House Democrats’ main political action committee is spending nearly $102 million to reserve advertising spots in 50 media markets, from Bangor, Maine, to San Diego, Calif., a battlefield that is considerably larger and more expensive than it was in the past two congressional elections.The breadth of the congressional map reveals the scope of Democrats’ worries about holding seats in midterm elections. Areas once considered safe, like South Texas, greater Pittsburgh and Seattle will see Democratic advertising.But Democrats will be playing some offense, too, especially in California, where redistricting has opened up Republican targets.“We are doing whatever it takes to hold the majority, and there are opportunities across the map,” said Abby Curran Horrell, the executive director of the House Democrats’ political action committee, known as House Majority PAC, adding, “We feel confident about the races that we plan to play in.”Her Republican counterpart, Dan Conston of the Congressional Leadership Fund, said the huge expenditure is a sign of weakness and an admission that inflation, rising crime rates and an unpopular Democratic president will not only cost Democrats swing districts but also make some districts President Biden won handily fiercely competitive.“I think they believe they’ve already lost the majority,” he said. “This is about staving off losses in some deep blue, traditionally Democratic areas.”The spending comes even as redistricting has shriveled the number of districts considered competitive based on election results in 2020. House district maps gerrymandered by both parties have left fewer than 40 seats — potentially far fewer — that would have been closely divided between Republican and Democratic voters in 2020. But the new advertising reservations point to a map that has expanded far beyond those districts.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Analysis: For years, the congressional map favored Republicans over Democrats. But in 2022, the map is poised to be surprisingly fair.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Wednesday’s reservations in 51 markets stand out, even in recent history. In 2020, House Majority PAC made initial advertising reservations in 29 media markets, with half the money it is spending Wednesday. In the Democratic wave year of 2018, $43 million was put down early for reservations in 33 markets.Democrats holding swing seats will see advertising spent on their behalf. Among the beneficiaries will be Representatives Jared Golden of Maine, Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria of Virginia, Cindy Axne of Iowa, Sharice Davids of Kansas, Angie Craig of Minnesota and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.But with Mr. Biden’s approval ratings hovering near 40 percent, House Majority PAC is reserving advertising time to defend some entrenched Democratic incumbents, whose political holds are weakened not just by the president but by newly drawn districts. Representative Sanford Bishop, for instance, has represented a swath of southern Georgia since 1993. Yet the PAC is reserving $2.6 million of ad space in three media markets to boost his re-election.A member of the Kildee family has represented the area around Flint, Mich., for 45 years — first Dale Kildee, then his nephew Dan, who took the seat nearly a decade ago. But new district lines and a stiff political headwind have forced House Majority PAC to make a hefty advertising reservation of more than $1 million to try to save the younger Kildee’s House career. Media stations in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., will get more than $1.7 million as the PAC tries to save Representative Matt Cartwright, another veteran.In Colorado, the last several elections seemed to turn the districts around Boulder and Denver into a reliable shade of blue. But redistricting and the retirement of Representative Ed Perlmutter have prompted House Majority PAC to pony up $4.4 million in the Denver media market to defend the state’s seventh and eighth districts.And the marked movement of Hispanic voters toward the Republican Party is forcing Democratic spending in South Texas to try to secure two House districts that stretch from the once reliably Democratic Rio Grande Valley to San Antonio and its suburbs.Rep. Katie Porter at a town hall meeting in Irvine, Calif., in 2019.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesRep. Mike Levin at an event hosted by the Democratic Party of Orange County, Calif., in 2019.Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesDemocrats are also preparing to spend big to stave off defeats in Southern California, focusing their defenses on Representatives Katie Porter and Mike Levin.The advertising reservations also show how painful it will be to defend the seats of the 31 House Democrats who have announced their retirements or are seeking other offices. Millions of dollars will be spent to save the seats of Mr. Perlmutter and other retiring Democrats, including Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, Cheri Bustos of Illinois and G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina.Democrats are defending the seats of the 31 House Democrats who have announced their retirements or are seeking other offices. They include, from left, Rep. Cheri Bustos, Rep. Ron Kind, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, Rep. G.K. Butterfield, and Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick. Win McNamee/Getty Images, Lauren Justice for The New York Times, Pool photo by Anna Moneymaker, Erin Schaff/The New York Times, Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times, Kelly Presnell/Arizona Daily Star, via Associated PressThe multitude of races in some states is also challenging Democratic efforts. In Nevada, for instance, where Democrats are trying to hold onto the governorship, a Senate seat, and three House seats, House Majority PAC is shelling out $11.6 million in Las Vegas alone.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More