• Latest
  • Trending
  • All
  • News
  • Lifestyle
House Dems seek to hold suburbs as Trump's slide worries GOP thumbnail

House Dems seek to hold suburbs as Trump’s slide worries GOP

August 2, 2020
Ocasio-Cortez Warns: Trump Admin Will Have a 'Problem' if More Democrats Arrested thumbnail

Ocasio-Cortez Warns: Trump Admin Will Have a ‘Problem’ if More Democrats Arrested

May 15, 2025
The New York Knicks Have Pushed the Boston Celtics to the Brink thumbnail

The New York Knicks Have Pushed the Boston Celtics to the Brink

May 14, 2025
Gen Z’s not drowning in buy-now-pay-later debt—yet. But experts warn it’s a luxury lifestyle trap thumbnail

Gen Z’s not drowning in buy-now-pay-later debt—yet. But experts warn it’s a luxury lifestyle trap

May 13, 2025
Traveling during hurricane season? Here's what you should know thumbnail

Traveling during hurricane season? Here’s what you should know

May 13, 2025
DHS warns of more Dem arrests after Newark ICE detention center protest — as Mayor Ras Baraka blames agency for escalation thumbnail

DHS warns of more Dem arrests after Newark ICE detention center protest — as Mayor Ras Baraka blames agency for escalation

May 12, 2025
Massachusetts suspect charged with attempting to assassinate a Cabinet nominee thumbnail

Massachusetts suspect charged with attempting to assassinate a Cabinet nominee

May 11, 2025
Scientists discover how some flowers mimic the smell of death thumbnail

Scientists discover how some flowers mimic the smell of death

May 10, 2025
State trooper points to possible weapon in John O'Keefe death – and it's not Karen Read's car thumbnail

State trooper points to possible weapon in John O’Keefe death – and it’s not Karen Read’s car

May 10, 2025
How to Address When an Employee Is Not Working Out for Your Team’s Success thumbnail

How to Address When an Employee Is Not Working Out for Your Team’s Success

May 10, 2025
New York Knicks two wins from East finals after second straight Celtics fightback thumbnail

New York Knicks two wins from East finals after second straight Celtics fightback

May 9, 2025
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won't seek the top Democratic seat on the House Oversight Committee thumbnail

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won’t seek the top Democratic seat on the House Oversight Committee

May 8, 2025
NBA playoffs: Celtics miss record 45 threes as Knicks roar back from 20 points down thumbnail

NBA playoffs: Celtics miss record 45 threes as Knicks roar back from 20 points down

May 7, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
  • Donate
Friday, May 16, 2025
66 °f
Wellfleet
58 ° Tue
63 ° Wed
68 ° Thu
61 ° Fri
  • Login
  • Register
FREE Cape Cod News
DONATE
  • FREE Cape Cod News
  • Cape Cod News
  • News
    • News
    • Massachusetts
    • Breaking News
    • Cape Cod Weather
    • Storm Watch
    • Environment
  • Politics
    • democrats
    • republicans
  • Business
    • business
    • cryptocurrency
    • economy
    • money
    • Real Estate
    • Tech
  • World
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Photos
    • Orleans
    • Eastham
    • Wellfleet
    • Truro
    • Provincetown
    • Brewster
    • Chatham
  • Videos
No Result
View All Result
Free Cape Cod News
No Result
View All Result
  • FREE Cape Cod News
  • Cape Cod News
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • World
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Photos
  • Videos
Home News Politics

House Dems seek to hold suburbs as Trump’s slide worries GOP

FREE Cape Cod News by FREE Cape Cod News
August 2, 2020
in Politics
Reading Time: 4 mins read
Donate
0
House Dems seek to hold suburbs as Trump's slide worries GOP thumbnail
641
SHARES
1.4k
VIEWS
Share on TwitterShare on Facebook

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a suburban Houston congressional district that backed President Donald Trump in 2016, a twice-elected Republican sheriff is battling a Democrat who’s the son of an immigrant from India. To Democrats, that smells like an opportunity.

Things are flipped in central New York, where freshman Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi faces the Republican he ousted two years ago from a district near Syracuse that includes smaller cities like Binghamton and Utica. Trump won there easily, and Republicans say his place atop the ticket will help propel Claudia Tenney back to Congress.

The tale of two districts 1,600 miles apart spotlights that many pivotal House races hinge on suburban voters. While some like Brindisi’s have a more rural, blue collar feel than the diverse, better educated one outside Houston, an overriding factor will be how Trump is viewed in the district.

And that’s a problem for the GOP.

Two years after a 40-seat surge fueled by wins in the suburbs hoisted Democrats to House control, Republican hopes of recapturing the majority have buckled along with Trump’s approval ratings. Some worry that the party will lose seats, an agonizing letdown from their one-time dream of retaking control by gaining 17 seats.

“My fear for Republicans is there are simply not enough rural voters to offset the losses they’ve suffered in the suburbs these last few years,” said former Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., a Trump critic. “It’s certainly possible the Democrats could pick up more than a few seats.”

Democrats boast an ever-expanding target list that includes a half-dozen Republican seats in Texas plus others outside Atlanta, Cincinnati, Los Angeles and Phoenix. They hope to win in traditionally red strongholds like Alaska, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska and rural Virginia, while toppling New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who defected to the GOP last year.

“We’re still on offense,” said Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., who leads House Democrats’ campaign organization. She didn’t predict how many seats her party would win.

Republicans have opportunities too, including in small town areas in central California, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia. They’re spending money on suburban seats they’ve previously lost in Georgia, Minnesota and Texas, plus others in Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City, New York City’s Staten Island and Charleston, South Carolina.

Spokesman Bob Salera of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s political arm, said Republicans will gain seats because progressives’ proposals on policing and health care will be “totally toxic among suburban voters.”

But Democrats are fortifying their chances with a money-raising bonanza. Since January 2019, all 29 Democrats in House districts Trump carried in 2016 have banked more money than their GOP challengers, usually by multiples. The same is true for all but two of the 24 other Democrats in seats Republicans said they’d pursue aggressively this year.

“That’s testament to the environment,” said GOP pollster Jon McHenry, citing the presidential race’s impact on down-ballot contests. “And it’s a wake-up call.”

Further bolstering Democrats is repulsion among educated voters over Trump’s racially inflammatory tirades, his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemi c and crippled economy, and the fact that many suburbs are growing more diverse.

All that could prove telling in the Houston-area district where Democrat Sri Preston Kulkarni is battling GOP Sheriff Troy Nehls.

The suburban district has been trending away from Republicans as it becomes wealthier and more diverse, with Trump’s 8-point victory there well below 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s 25-point win. The district has so many minorities that Kulkarni’s campaign literature is in 21 languages.

Houston has also seen a major virus resurgence. “It’s the greatest failure of leadership in American history,” Kulkarni said of Trump’s pandemic response.

The American-born Kulkarni left college temporarily when his father was dying of cancer to help provide care and to aid the family’s struggle with medical bills. He wields the story as a cautionary tale as Democrats make health care their top issue during a pandemic in which Republicans want the Supreme Court to overturn former President Barack Obama’s health care law.

A former foreign service officer, Kulkarni lost a 2018 bid for the seat to GOP Rep. Pete Olson, who chose to retire after that close call. Outspent last time, Kulkarni has raised five times what Nehls has collected.

Nehls served two decades in the Army Reserve and is sheriff of Fort Bend County, which dominates the congressional district. He’s emphasized his “proven independent brand” as a sheriff used to “building bridges” with “diverse communities,” said campaign spokesman Nick Maddux.

Yet Nehls hasn’t hid his support for Trump, attending when the president visited Texas recently. He’s shared Trump’s disdain for protective masks, writing that a local mandatory mask order “looks more like a communist dictatorship than a free Republic.” In a digital ad early this year, the announcer boasted that as sheriff, Nehls “locked up over 2,500 criminal illegal immigrants.”

Brindisi’s upstate New York district was struggling economically before the virus hit, and many expect Trump’s populist and nationalist appeals to help the president carry it again. Brindisi defeated Tenney in 2018 by 2 percentage points, and Trump carried the district by 16 points two years earlier.

Tenney said she’s focusing on her accomplishments during her two years in Congress, including backing the GOP’s huge 2017 tax cuts. And she’s attacking Brindisi for falsely posing as a moderate, citing his support for Trump’s impeachment.

“If you just drive around and look what’s going on, it’s Trump country,” said Tenney, adding that Trump’s popularity should prove “a big help” to her.

Brindisi said the district doesn’t need a “controversial” representative. Among other things, Tenney once asserted that many shooters in mass slayings are Democrats.

Brindisi’s first TV ad highlights language he inserted into a larger bill requiring the military to buy stainless steel flatware domestically. The last U.S. producer of those items happens to be in his district.

“Regardless of who’s at the top of the ballot, I think that I can stand on my own two feet,” said Brindisi. What matters, he said, is having a representative who “shows up and gets the job done.”

Read More

FREE Digital Newspaper Subscription!
Sign up for your free digital subscription. The FREE Cape Cod News

Unsubscribe
FREE Cape Cod News

FREE Cape Cod News

Free Cape Cod News is what's happening in the Cape Cod, U.S and World & what people are talking about right now. Local newspaper. Stay in the know. Subscribe to get notified about our latest news.

Related Posts

Trump’s Approval Rating Hits New Low, Capping Week of Dismal Polling thumbnail
News

Trump’s Approval Rating Hits New Low, Capping Week of Dismal Polling

by FREE Cape Cod News
April 28, 2025
HUMAN EVENTS: Americans voted for mass deportation—Republicans can't back down now thumbnail
News

HUMAN EVENTS: Americans voted for mass deportation—Republicans can’t back down now

by FREE Cape Cod News
April 23, 2025
Republicans plow ahead with anti-abortion agenda in states where voters approved constitutional amendments thumbnail
News

Republicans plow ahead with anti-abortion agenda in states where voters approved constitutional amendments

by FREE Cape Cod News
April 14, 2025
With deadline looming, senators introduce NFIP reauthorization thumbnail
News

With deadline looming, senators introduce NFIP reauthorization

by FREE Cape Cod News
March 10, 2025
Load More
Please login to join discussion

Follow Us on Twitter

FREE Cape Cod News - Your source for local Cape Cod news, latest breaking U.S. and World news. Every day, all day. Subscribe for your favorite categories.

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Ocasio-Cortez Warns: Trump Admin Will Have a 'Problem' if More Democrats Arrested thumbnail

Ocasio-Cortez Warns: Trump Admin Will Have a ‘Problem’ if More Democrats Arrested

May 15, 2025
Cryptocurrency company Ripple says SEC lawsuit is imminent thumbnail

Cryptocurrency company Ripple says SEC lawsuit is imminent

December 22, 2020
FDA approves key coronavirus test that could significantly speed up results thumbnail

FDA approves key coronavirus test that could significantly speed up results

July 20, 2020
Ocasio-Cortez Warns: Trump Admin Will Have a 'Problem' if More Democrats Arrested thumbnail

Ocasio-Cortez Warns: Trump Admin Will Have a ‘Problem’ if More Democrats Arrested

0
The New York Knicks Have Pushed the Boston Celtics to the Brink thumbnail

The New York Knicks Have Pushed the Boston Celtics to the Brink

0
Traveling during hurricane season? Here's what you should know thumbnail

Traveling during hurricane season? Here’s what you should know

0
Ocasio-Cortez Warns: Trump Admin Will Have a 'Problem' if More Democrats Arrested thumbnail

Ocasio-Cortez Warns: Trump Admin Will Have a ‘Problem’ if More Democrats Arrested

May 15, 2025
The New York Knicks Have Pushed the Boston Celtics to the Brink thumbnail

The New York Knicks Have Pushed the Boston Celtics to the Brink

May 14, 2025
Gen Z’s not drowning in buy-now-pay-later debt—yet. But experts warn it’s a luxury lifestyle trap thumbnail

Gen Z’s not drowning in buy-now-pay-later debt—yet. But experts warn it’s a luxury lifestyle trap

May 13, 2025

FREE Cape Cod News On Twitter

Today’s News

  • Ocasio-Cortez Warns: Trump Admin Will Have a ‘Problem’ if More Democrats Arrested May 15, 2025
  • The New York Knicks Have Pushed the Boston Celtics to the Brink May 14, 2025
  • Gen Z’s not drowning in buy-now-pay-later debt—yet. But experts warn it’s a luxury lifestyle trap May 13, 2025
  • Traveling during hurricane season? Here’s what you should know May 13, 2025
  • DHS warns of more Dem arrests after Newark ICE detention center protest — as Mayor Ras Baraka blames agency for escalation May 12, 2025
FREE Cape Cod News

Copyright © 2024 Free Cape Cod News

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
  • Donate

Follow Us

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

No Result
View All Result
  • FREE Cape Cod News
  • Cape Cod News
  • News
    • News
    • Massachusetts
    • Breaking News
    • Cape Cod Weather
    • Storm Watch
    • Environment
  • Politics
    • democrats
    • republicans
  • Business
    • business
    • cryptocurrency
    • economy
    • money
    • Real Estate
    • Tech
  • World
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Photos
    • Orleans
    • Eastham
    • Wellfleet
    • Truro
    • Provincetown
    • Brewster
    • Chatham
  • Videos
  • Login
  • Sign Up

Copyright © 2024 Free Cape Cod News