Trump expands House battleground map
"It's like there's two different elections going on," says one veteran Republican House pollster.
By Theodoric Meyer
09/11/16 05:09 PM EDT
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.
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http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/house-republicans-weathering-trump-storm-for-now-228011
