Trump expands House battleground map

Democrats seeking control of the House are pushing into new battleground districts, exposing vulnerable Republicans in diverse suburban areas that have been safe GOP seats for nearly a generation, according to a POLITICO analysis of Census demographic data, internal polling from both parties, and TV advertising data.

Longtime GOP strongholds like Orange County, Calif. and suburbs of Orlando, Minneapolis, Kansas City, look set to have competitive House races for the first time in decades. Indeed, Donald Trump has accelerated decade-long changes in both parties’ coalitions, repulsing minority voters while driving more college-educated whites out of their traditional home in the GOP. Democrats — who would need a whopping 30 seats to win the House — are already targeting at least 18 of the 60 GOP districts with the highest share of college-educated white voters, many of which also have large numbers of nonwhite voters. And Democrats are looking at that formula as they seek to expand the House map even further this fall, beyond even first-ever challenges to veteran Republicans like Florida’s John Mica and California’s Darrell Issa.

The average district in the emerging House battlefield — which so far includes 45 GOP-held districts, per the Cook Political Report’s current ratings — is 10 percentage points less white than in 2006, and the white population in those seats is about 5 percentage points more college-educated than a decade ago. In other words, the House battlegrounds of 2016 feature both a larger Democratic base and a bigger pool of swing voters loosened from the Republican Party by Trump.

The question for House Democrats is whether enough new diverse and high-education districts are on the map this year for them to leverage Trump into a serious challenge for the 30 seats they need. Even as he struggles elsewhere, Trump remains startlingly strong (and Clinton very weak) in blue-collar districts that have traditionally been House majority-makers — from northeastern Wisconsin to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to upstate New York — which could make it tougher for Democrats to play offense there.


http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/house-republicans-weathering-trump-storm-for-now-228011#ixzz4K0930odr