Playbook PM: Latest House ratings look good for GOP

From: POLITICO Playbook - Wednesday Apr 20,2022 05:27 pm

Apr 20, 2022

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THE BIDENS ARE COMING TO DINNER — President JOE BIDEN and first lady JILL BIDEN will attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 30 — a return to tradition of the first couple attending the annual event after the Trumps spurned the “nerd prom” during their years in the White House. More from Quint Forgey

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy talks to reporters during his weekly news conference.

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HOUSE RATING CHANGES LOOK GOOD FOR GOP — House Minority Leader KEVIN MCCARTHY and NRCC Chairman TOM EMMER (R-Minn.) are having a stellar week: In the past 24 hours, two of the most-watched political raters have shifted their projections for clusters of competitive House races — all in favor or Republicans.

— DAVE WASSERMAN at Cook Political Report changed the ratings of eight House matchups. That includes three Democratic incumbents — SUSIE LEE (Nev.), STEVEN HORSFORD (Nev.) and ABIGAIL SPANBERGER (Va.) — who are being kicked from the “lean Democrat” to “toss-up” categories.

After the change, as Wasserman noted, 27 Democratic-held seats are in the “toss-up or worse” column, compared to 12 GOP-held districts.

From the analysis: “President Biden's approval rating remains stuck at 42 percent, and if anything the political environment has deteriorated for Democrats since January as inflation concerns have soared and Build Back Better has stalled. That means no Democrat in a single-digit Biden (or Trump-won) district is secure, and even some seats Biden carried by double-digit margins in 2020 could come into play this fall, giving the GOP surprising ‘reach’ opportunities.”

— LARRY SABATO’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics shifted 11 House races toward the GOP. Most of these,as they note in their analysis, “either move marginally competitive Republican-held seats to the ‘Safe Republican’ category, or move Democratic districts from ‘Likely Democratic’ to the more competitive ‘Leans Democratic’ column.”

For Republicans, those include:BILL HUIZENGA (Mich.), RICHARD HUDSON (N.C.), SCOTT PERRY (Pa.) and TONY GONZALES (Texas).

For Democrats, those include: GREG STANTON (Ariz.), SANFORD BISHOP (Ga.), FRANK MRVAN (Ind.), and ANTONIO DELGATO (N.Y.), who are moving from “likely Democrat” to “leans Democrat.” Lee (Nev.) went from “lean Democrat” to “toss-up.”

Good Wednesday afternoon.

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POLICY CORNER

BIDEN’S BORDER PROBLEM ABOUT TO GET WORSE — The scuffle over the Biden administration’s decision to end Title 42 is already complicating the White House’s request for pandemic relief money — not to mention causing political headaches for Dems writ large. Now it appears that the situation could become even more dire due to looming funding problems at the border.

“U.S. border agencies could face a budget shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars if the Covid rule called Title 42 is lifted next month as planned and a record surge of migrants follows, and the Biden administration could ask Congress for more money to cover it,” officials tell NBC’s Julia Ainsley . “According to internal predictions, some operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection could be completely out of funds by as early as July. Those projections are based on predictions that as many as 14,000 migrants could begin crossing the U.S.-Mexico border per day after Title 42 ends on May 23, nearly doubling last month’s record high number of migrant encounters.”

CLIMATE CLASH — Biden’s efforts to curb what he insists is “Putin’s price hike” at gas pumps across the country are irking many climate activists. “Some advocates are increasingly frustrated over the discordant approach, arguing that Biden is sacrificing some of his long-term goal of combating climate change — and a presidential legacy of helping steer the nation away from fossil fuels — in exchange for the short-term aim of lowering prices at the pump. Beyond that, some contend the moves will barely affect gas prices,” WaPo’s Matt Viser and Anna Phillips write.

CONGRESS

THE PROXY BATTLE — When the pandemic began and the House shifted toward remote voting, Republicans were swift to decry the move. In fact, over 50 Republicans “once joined a lawsuit claiming the House’s pandemic-era proxy voting was unconstitutional,” AP’s Alan Fram writes. But now, Washington has settled into the new reality on both sides of the aisle. Here’s a breakdown of the numbers:

“The AP numbers show that overall, 191 Democrats, nearly 9-in-10, and 112 Republicans, just over half, have used proxy votes this year, cast by colleagues present in the chamber.”

“Of the House Republicans who’ve voted remotely this year, 54 had also signed onto a 2020 lawsuit that asserted it was ‘simply impossible’ to ignore the Constitution’s requirement that lawmakers vote in person.”

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JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH

GINNI THOMAS LATEST — CNN’s Katelyn Polantz and Andrew Kaczynski flick at another link to VIRGINIA THOMAS in the hubbub over her relationship with the Trump White House in its efforts to overturn the 2020 Election in the leadup to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack — and what it means for Supreme Court Justice CLARENCE THOMAS. “A day before the 2020 presidential election, Virginia ‘Ginni’ Thomas mugged for the camera wearing a Trump baseball cap with her friend CONNIE HAIR, chief of staff to GOP Rep. LOUIE GOHMERT of Texas, at an event supporting the then-President in pictures posted on Facebook at the time.

“A month later, in her now-infamous texts to Trump chief of staff MARK MEADOWS , Thomas … referred to Hair and claims about election fraud while urging Meadows to fight the election result. Around that same time, Hair's boss, Gohmert, filed or supported two lawsuits challenging the election that eventually landed before the Supreme Court.

“Ginni Thomas’ years-long relationship with Hair, including social outings that Clarence Thomas attended, as well as her texting with Meadows add another dimension to an ongoing debate over whether her husband should recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection, especially when his wife is closely aligned to people who advocated overturning the election.”

ALL POLITICS

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: THE POWER OF VIRALITY — Over the last 24 hours, Michigan state Sen. MALLORY MCMORROW has raised more than $150,000 from more than 3,500 donors, her campaign tells Playbook — an absolutely enormous single-day sum for a state legislative race. That comes as the video of the Democrat’s zeitgeisty floor speech responding to a GOP colleague who baselessly accused her of being a “groomer” and sexualizing children went viral, amassing more than 10 million views on Twitter. Video of McMorrow’s speech

AD WARS — American Bridge 21st Century, the Democratic super PAC, is dropping a $3.5 million ad buy to boost Biden in a handful of battleground states that should come as no surprise, Elena Schneider reports . “The TV, digital and radio ads will air in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Nevada — a quartet of states Biden won in 2020 that also feature top Senate, House and gubernatorial races in 2022. The super PAC has been airing ads in these states over the last six weeks, part of American Bridge’s midterm spending plan, which will reach into eight figures. The new ads, shared first with POLITICO, show the group zeroing in on an economic message as inflation spikes.” The Arizona ad … The Pennsylvania ad

THE NEW GOP — Vanity Fair is up with a big look at the reshaping of the Republican Party that is underway. One of the central figures in the story is, yes, you guessed it: tech mogul and would-be GOP kingmaker PETER THIEL. But another key character in James Pogue’s examination is CURTIS YARVIN, “a 48-year-old ex-programmer and blogger,” who Pogue writes “has done more than anyone to articulate the world historical critique and popularize the key terms of the New Right. …

“Political reporters, at least the ones who have bothered to write about Yarvin, have often dismissed him as a kook with a readership made up mostly of lonely internet weirdos, fascists, or both. But to ignore him is to underestimate how Yarvin’s ideas, or at least ideas in conversation with his, have become foundational to a whole political and cultural scene that goes much deeper than anything you’d learn from the panels and speeches at an event like NatCon. Or how those ideas are going to shape the future of the American right, whether or not Vance and Masters win their Senate primaries.”

GEORGIA ON MY MIND — HERSCHEL WALKER’s run for the Senate in Georgia has been littered with warnings and worry from the establishment, accusations of domestic abuse and a Trumpian approach to speeches and public remarks. “But little of this seems to matter to the Republican voters embracing his Senate primary campaign,” NYT’s Maya King reports in LaGrange, Ga. “Mr. Walker’s one-name-only fame has propelled him to the top of the field. In less than nine months as a candidate, he has amassed $10 million in cash. He campaigns with no fear of his primary opponents and all the confidence of an all-star athlete.

“‘I go into these cities and give people hope,’ Mr. Walker said on Monday in an interview at the meet-and-greet in LaGrange, a small town about an hour south of Atlanta. ‘Most everybody in Georgia knows who I am. The people that want to try to deny they know who I am aren’t from Georgia. Let’s be real.’ But even some Republicans worry their party is being blinded by fandom.”

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BEYOND THE BELTWAY

SPENDING SPREE — As states find themselves flush with cash from the federal government’s pandemic stimulus spending, they’re getting pressured to use the extra dollars on schools. But what’s going to happen when things get back to normal? “School districts and administrators can tap the use-it-or-lose-it Covid relief money approved by Congress to address emergencies and attract in-demand workers like bus drivers and substitute teachers. But schools could face a ‘funding cliff’ when federal monies run dry in September 2024,” Juan Perez Jr. and Lara Korte write. “That’s made many of those same state and local education officials nervous about sustaining any ambitious pay boosts and hiring sprees once their budgets are no longer cushioned with federal cash.”

WAR IN UKRAINE

— “Russian forces pressed their offensive in Ukraine on Wednesday, raining artillery and missile strikes along the long eastern front, as Ukrainian soldiers holding out inside a sprawling steel factory in the southeastern city of Mariupol warned that they could be killed within hours,” NYT’s Marc Santora reports . “Even as the Ukrainian troops in Mariupol defied another Russian deadline to surrender, a tentative deal was reached to allow women and children to evacuate the besieged port city, although it was unclear whether civilians also sheltering inside the steel plant would be able to leave along the proposed departure route.”

— “A top adviser to Ukraine’s president insisted that the battered port city of Mariupol ‘is holding on’ despite a Russian deadline for fighters to surrender or face a bitter end,” per WaPo.

— Russia gets anti-social: “The Kremlin is waging a new influence campaign: persuading Russians to quit Western social-media platforms,” writes WSJ’s Sarah Needleman and Evan Gershkovich . “Now they have to convince Russians used to the freedoms of YouTube and Instagram that censored domestic social networks can deliver moneymaking opportunities and equally large audiences. And that they aren’t just cheap knockoffs.”

PLAYBOOKERS

OUT AND ABOUT — Belgian Ambassador Jean-Arthur Régibeau and Coach Kathy Kemper hosted a salon fireside chat with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Nina Easton on Tuesday night at Régibeau’s residence, where Belgian chef Kevin Henoumont treated guests to le champignon en croquette, cru et poêlé, filet d’agneau, tian en croûte de coriandre and vanille, chocolat, framboises éclats de meringues, accompanied by Graves, Bordeaux, 2019 and Saint Emilion Grand Cru, Château Riou de Thaillas, 2013. SPOTTED: Aneesh Chopra, Jenny Johnson, Carlos Monje Jr., Michael Dunaway, R. David Edelman, John Paul Farmer, Omair Khan, Shaun Modi, Alondra Nelson, Kelsey Valentine, Kathi Vidal and Demetri Kusnezov.

MEDIA MOVE — Abby Livingston will be leaving the Texas Tribune, where she has been the D.C. bureau chief.

WHITE HOUSE ARRIVAL LOUNGE — Stephen Viña is now assistant national cyber director for legislative affairs at the White House. He most recently was an SVP at Marsh, and is a longtime Capitol Hill alum.

TRANSITIONS — Daniel Trope is now head of government affairs for Garmin. He previously was director of government affairs at Swisher. … Haley Wint is now press secretary/digital director for Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.). She most recently was chief clerk/comms aide for the House Veterans Affairs Committee. …

… Jennifer Lee is now chief medical officer at the Alliance of Community Health Plans. She is a former Medicaid director for Virginia and a VA alum. … Curt Villarosa is now a manager of corporate affairs and comms at American Express. He previously was publicity director at ABC News. … Sydney Gart is joining the finance team of Sen. Maggie Hassan’s (D-N.H.) reelection campaign. She most recently has been a brand and marketing associate at Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington.

WEDDING — Matt Blackwood, an assistant U.S. attorney at the Justice Department, and Nika Nour, head of partnerships at Genvid Entertainment, got married April 1 in Joshua Tree with family present and Nika’s sister officiating. The couple met in Dupont Circle six years ago. Pic

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — AJ Malicdem, deputy COS for Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), and Korrea Johnston, a marketing manager, welcomed Kru John Malicdem on Friday. He came in at 7 lbs 8 oz and 20 inches. Pic

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