{"id":1979133,"date":"2023-07-21T00:18:04","date_gmt":"2023-07-21T04:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/five-house-democrats-hold-districts-donald-trump-won-in-2020-and-are-running-for-their-political-lives\/"},"modified":"2023-07-21T00:23:56","modified_gmt":"2023-07-21T04:23:56","slug":"five-house-democrats-hold-districts-donald-trump-won-in-2020-and-are-running-for-their-political-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/five-house-democrats-hold-districts-donald-trump-won-in-2020-and-are-running-for-their-political-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Five House Democrats in Trump-won districts fight for survival in upcoming elections."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffive-house-democrats-hold-districts-donald-trump-won-in-2020-and-are-running-for-their-political-lives%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1979133&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>ORONO, Maine: A Tale of Two Political Landscapes<\/h2>\n<p>A brick exterior wall \u2064of the University of Maine\u2019s Climate Change Institute features, behind glass, a recent USA Today article touting its \u2063scientific research. The story focused on the\u2062 U.S. Ocean Climate Action Plan put in place by the Biden administration, which used\u200d data about rising sea temperatures produced by the university environmental \u200dresearch center.<\/p>\n<p>Off \u200ccampus a couple of miles away, within walking distance along the Penobscot River on a temperate midsummer day, a swath of lawn\u200d signs in front of shingle-style houses touts former President Donald Trump \u2014 specifically, his 2024 GOP primary campaign for\u200d the White House, which he\u2019s favored to win, setting up a general election rematch against President\u200b Joe Biden, to whom Trump lost\u200c in 2020.<\/p>\n<h3>A Political Battleground<\/h3>\n<p>This dichotomy in a population center of the Pine Tree State\u2019s sprawling northern tier goes beyond traditional town-gown tensions, where liberal college students and faculty clash politically with more conservative local\u2064 residents. It also reflects the politically competitive nature of\u2064 Maine\u2019s 2nd Congressional District, represented \u2063since early\u200d 2019 by Democratic congressman Jared Golden. Trump beat Biden in that district 51.6%-45.5%.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the only district in New England that in \u200b2020 backed Trump over Biden. It\u2019s also among\u200c five \u2062districts that voted for Trump and a Democratic House member in 2020. Conversely, \u206318 House districts won by Biden also voted for a\u200c Republican representative \u2064in Congress.<\/p>\n<p>Combined, these crossover districts will be at \u2064the epicenter of both parties\u2019 efforts to win a House majority in \u200dthe 2024 elections. All part of\u200c a\u2064 political knife fight to \u200dgain or keep control of the House, which Republicans now narrowly control with a 222-213 \u2063majority.<\/p>\n<p>Golden \u200bin his 2024 reelection bid can expect lots of outside spending \u200din the district, the largest east of the Mississippi River, stretching up \u2063to the U.S.-Canada border. Maine is one of two states,\u200c along \u200dwith Nebraska, which allocate an electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, along\u200c with two\u2062 to the statewide \u2063popular\u200d vote winner. Trump won \u200ba single Maine electoral vote in both his 2016 win over Democratic \u200cpresidential nominee Hillary\u2063 Clinton and his 2020 loss \u200cto Biden.<\/p>\n<p>Golden, in his 4 1\/2\u2062 years in Congress, has sought to\u2063 distance himself from national Democrats,\u200b who aren\u2019t looked upon kindly by some\u2064 voters in his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/battle-rages-over-californias-51-cent-gas-tax\/\" title=\"Battle Rages Over California\u2019s 51-Cent Gas Tax\">blue-collar district<\/a>, known for its thick woodlands,\u2063 rugged \u2063coastlines, and smaller towns. His bio leans into that. In 2002, Golden left college after\u2062 one year \u200dto\u200b join the Marines, and he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/a-solidly-blue-district-is-now-competitive-erik-aadland-and-brittany-pettersen-compete-for-colorados-7th-district\/\" title=\"A Solidly Blue District is Now Competitive: Erik Aadland and Brittany Pettersen Compete for Colorado\u2019s 7th District\">served combat tours<\/a> in Iraq and Afghanistan.\u200d After returning home to\u2063 Maine, Golden attended and graduated from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. He went on to work for Maine\u2019s Republican senator, Susan Collins, on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n<p>Golden eventually became \u2064a Democrat \u2064and was a state House member from \u200b2014 to 2018. That year he beat \u200cRepublican Rep. Bruce Poliquin as Democrats captured a House majority midway through Trump\u2019s White House term. In Golden\u2019s 2020\u2062 reelection win,\u2062 he \u200boutperformed Biden in the district by almost \u200b14 points, even as the same election decimated Democrats\u2019 ranks in rural America.<\/p>\n<p>One Republican candidate, so far for \u20622024, is running for the 2nd District seat,\u2062 mortgage broker Rob Cross.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cMy roots in Maine run deep. Like\u200b so many Mainers, I learned the value of\u2064 honesty, hard work, compassion, and faith\u200c from\u2062 my family,\u201d Cross said in\u200b April\u2064 while announcing his House candidacy. \u201cAs a\u200c husband, father, and new grandfather, I\u2019m working to ensure \u2062the \u200bnext generation of Americans can enjoy \u2064the freedom, prosperity, and security past generations \u200cfought so hard to gain and protect.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Cross ran unsuccessfully for the state Senate in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Another Republican considering a congressional bid for the seat\u2063 held by Golden include state Rep. Lauren Libby of Auburn.\u200b More Republicans \u2064could \u200dstill jump into the race, among them state House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham \u200band state Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart.<\/p>\n<h2>Alaska At-Large<\/h2>\n<p>Though a continent away, with much of Canada in between, Alaska \u200dand Maine have many similarities beyond the just abundant moose roaming the states\u2019 vast wildlands \u200c(and sometimes residents\u2019 backyards). \u2062Both also use \u200dforms of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/georgia-house-passes-omnibus-election-reform-bill\/\" title=\"Georgia House Passes Omnibus Election Reform Bill\">ranked choice voting<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Under ranked choice voting, also known as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/why-ranked-choice-voting-is-deeply-flawed\/\" title=\"Why Ranked Choice Voting Is Deeply Flawed\">instant runoff voting<\/a>, voters have the option to rank candidates in order of preference: first, second, third, and\u200d so on. \u200cThe lowest vote-getters are then \u200bknocked from the ballot and their support redistributed to the most \u2063popular office \u2062seekers. Supporters say <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/five-house-democrats-hold-districts-donald-trump-won-in-2020-and-are-running-for-their-political-lives\/\" title=\"Five House Democrats in Trump-won districts fight for survival in upcoming elections.\">ranked choice voting improves\u200b fairness<\/a> in elections by allowing voters to \u2064rank candidates \u200din order of preference. Under this\u200d system, centrist-leaning candidates tend to do best because success \u200cmeans appealing not just\u200d to a partisan fringe but a much wider group of voters.<\/p>\n<p>That was the case in New York City, where Eric Adams won the 2021 mayoral election over several far-left rivals, and in Alaska the\u200c next year, where Rep. Mary Peltola \u2063became the first Democratic House member from the state in nearly 50 years.<\/p>\n<p>Peltola was a state House \u2062member from 1999-2009, an across-the-aisle friend of former\u2063 Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin,\u200c the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee. After Rep. Don Young died in March 2022, Peltola jumped\u2062 into what became a 48-candidate field to replace the Republican lawmaker, first elected in a March 1973 special election for \u2062Alaska\u2019s lone House seat.<\/p>\n<p>The special election was the first \u2064time Alaska had used ranked choice voting, based on\u200b the top four candidates who made it \u2062through the\u200c primary. Peltola won the House seat by beating Palin and Republican tech executive Nick Begich III. (A fourth finisher, independent\u2063 Al Gross, \u2063dropped out.)<\/p>\n<p>Peltola\u2064 won the summer 2022\u200c special election, becoming the first Alaska Native member of Congress. Peltola in November won a\u2062 full two-year term, part of House\u200c Democrats\u2019 much better-than-expected midterm election showing.<\/p>\n<p>In November 2024, Peltola will seek reelection on\u200c the same \u200cballot as presidential candidates, in \u200ca state where in 2020 Trump beat Biden 53%-43%. And at least one former rival is back \u2014 Begich, a rare Republican member of Alaska&#8217;s \u200dmost \u2064prominent\u200c Democratic \u200bfamily. (His grandfather\u200b and namesake was Young&#8217;s immediate predecessor, while his uncle Mark Begich was a one-term senator from 2009-15.)<\/p>\n<p>Peltola has tried to steer a middle course in Congress.\u200c She\u2019s a member of the conservative-leaning Blue Dog Coalition. The mother of seven, meanwhile, touts her support for abortion rights. The Alaska House race figures to be one of the most tightly contested in\u2064 the country next year.<\/p>\n<h2>Ohio 9th\u2062 Congressional District<\/h2>\n<p>Rep. \u200dMarcy Kaptur (D-OH), the longest-tenured woman in Congress \u2064ever, is seeking reelection in this Toledo area and northwestern Ohio district. It\u2019s a different area\u2064 than the reliably\u2063 blue northern Ohio district Kaptur had represented, in different shapes, after being elected in 1982. But a Buckeye State Republican redraw of House district lines, with the\u200b goal of bolstering GOP political\u2063 fortunes, saw Kaptur \u2062move a bit south to the 9th District, where Trump in 2020 beat Biden 50.6%-47.7%.<\/p>\n<p>Now the\u200d Republican primary race is\u200d heating up more than\u2063 a year in advance. Several northwest Ohio Republican \u2064candidates are in the running, including Craig Riedel; former state Rep. Dan Wilczynski, a former mayor of Walbridge, a Toledo suburb; and Steve Lankenau, an ex-mayor of Napoleon.<\/p>\n<p>Riedel lost the 2022 GOP primary election to \u2064J.R. Majewski, who earned 43% of the vote in\u200d his general election defeat at the hands of Kaptur. Majewski\u200b turned out to be one\u200c of House Republicans\u2019 biggest disappointments in the midterm elections when they expected to win dozens of seats but barely eked out a majority. \u2062Majewski,\u2063 a Trump acolyte, lost \u200csupport in the\u200d months leading up to the general election when the\u200b Associated Press reported that he had misrepresented his military service.<\/p>\n<p>First elected to Congress \u200din 1982\u2064 at the age of 36, Kaptur entered elected office after spending years\u200d as a \u2063city planner and as an urban \u200cadviser to President Jimmy Carter. She has proven crossover partisan appeal as a long and leading voice against free trade deals, an issue never particularly popular in Ohio but made downright politically toxic \u200din the\u200c Trump era.<\/p>\n<h2>Pennsylvania 8th Congressional District<\/h2>\n<p>Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) looks to\u2062 extend his winning\u2062 streak in this Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre and \u200cnortheastern Pennsylvania district, where Trump in 2020 beat Biden 50.9%-48%, a\u200d similar margin to the former president\u2019s defeat there of \u200dClinton in 2016. \u2064Cartwright\u200d is the only Democratic House member to win reelection\u200b in a district that twice backed Trump and in \u200cthe midterm elections of 2018\u2064 (when Democrats won the \u2064majority)\u2063 and 2022 (as Republicans \u2062earned control of the chamber).<\/p>\n<p>Cartwright in 2020 and 2022 beat Jim Bognet, an attorney and political consultant. Cartwright,\u200c an economic populist, successfully hammered Bognet as\u200c a Washington \u2062swamp creature, in Trump parlance, with ties to K Street influence-peddling \u2063operations.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Cartwright is \u200damong\u200d more than two dozen \u2063House Democrats deemed vulnerable \u2064by the party\u2019s campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.\u200b The DCCC recently unveiled \u2062its list of 29 members\u2062 of\u2063 the Frontline Program for \u200dvulnerable incumbents,\u200b identifying lawmakers in their party who are at risk \u2064of losing reelection next year.<\/p>\n<p>Potential Republican candidates include state Sen. Rosemary Brown and Seth Kaufer, a\u2063 physician and GOP\u200d activist.<\/p>\n<h2>Washington 3rd Congressional District<\/h2>\n<p>Marie Gluesenkamp Perez \u200bin 2022 capitalized on Trump-era \u200dinternecine Republican rifts to put this southwestern Washington district into Democratic hands for the first time in 12 years. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler finished third in the all-party primary behind Gluesenkamp \u2063Perez and \u2062a fellow Republican, Joe Kent, a retired Army Green \u2064Beret.<\/p>\n<p>Beutler had been among\u2063 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in early\u200b 2021, in the\u2064 aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot. That gave an opening to\u2064 Kent, a critic of aid to \u2063Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia, who was sympathetic\u200b to Trump\u2019s false claims about a \u2063rigged or stolen \u200c2020 election.<\/p>\n<p>In the \u200bgeneral election, \u200bGluesenkamp Perez, an auto shop owner with her husband, played up an independent streak, far from the liberal tendencies of most House Democrats. She beat\u200b Kent 50.14%-49.31% in\u200b November 2022 \u200cin a district where Trump had beaten \u200cBiden 50.8%-48.6% two years earlier.<\/p>\n<p>Once \u2064ensconced in the House, Gluesenkamp \u2064Perez has emphasized her\u2062 bipartisan bona fides. On May 24, her reelection campaign posted a mildly profane tweet, also\u2063 Golden of Maine and \u2063Peltola\u200c of Alaska, in a photo in which the trio look more like members of a \u201890s \u200dIndie band than House lawmakers.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cTeams \u2063get s*** done, so I\u2019m teaming up with Jared Golden and Mary Peltola to rebuild the Blue Dogs into something useful for working people. We know who we are, and we know how to win. Congress needs more people like us, and a lot fewer weirdos with white nationalist friends.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Kent is running again in 2024.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWe are\u2062 only beginning to \u200dlearn who our \u2063Democrat Congresswoman Marie Perez really is,\u201d Kent said in a January \u200dcandidate statement. \u201cThe moderate mask has fallen off and revealed a \u2064woke extremist.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Gluesenkamp Perez, meanwhile, \u200bhas spent much of her time in southwest Washington, visiting businesses\u200c and educational \u2062programs. She also hosted \u200cmultiple roundtables and meetings around the district\u2063 to hear from farmers\u2064 on agricultural concerns.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/campaigns\/2024-house-races-to-watch\">CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The University of Maine&#8217;s Climate Change Institute showcases a USA Today article on its brick wall. The article highlights the Biden administration&#8217;s U.S. Ocean Climate Action Plan, utilizing the university&#8217;s data on increasing sea temperatures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1979134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1979133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1979133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1979133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1979133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1979134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1979133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1979133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1979133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}