New Dem Campaign Chief Wants Pair Of Close-Call Candidates To Run Again

By Cameron Joseph
December 11, 2018 6:00 am
The new head of House Democrats’ efforts to retain their newfound majority made it clear she’s not content to just play defense in 2020 — and had a pair of candidates in mind to help her party expand the map who fell just short in 2018.

Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-IL), the newly elected head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that she hoped both Minnesota’s Dan Feehan and Illinois’ Betsy Dirksen Londrigan run again after losing close races last month.

“I hope they both run,” she told TPM in a brief sit-down in her office Monday afternoon.

Feehan lost a hotly contested race in a southern Minnesota district to Rep.-elect Jim Hagedorn (R-MN) by 1,300 votes, one of only two seats Republicans flipped this past election, in a formerly swing district that President Obama carried twice but President Trump won by almost 15 points in 2016.

Londrigan also came up just short in bid against Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) in a traditionally swing district that had trended towards the GOP in recent years. The close call was driven by heavy turnout in the district’s two Democratic strongholds, the state capitol of Springfield and the college town of Champaign. The result came as something of a surprise — Davis himself hadn’t expected a close race just months before the election, and national strategists in both parties didn’t have the race at the top of their target lists on election day.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/new-dem-campaign-chief-wants-pair-of-close-call-candidates-to-run-again