At Politico, "House Democrats in retreat":
Three weeks out from an election that could give Republicans a historic majority, House Democrats are resorting to the painful strategy of retreat.Crush them just like any threat to American prosperity needs to be crushed and violently destroyed.
Faced with a perilous midterm environment and a sudden gush of Republican money, Democrats are shifting cash from blue-chip recruits to prop up teetering incumbents. The goal is to minimize losses and keep Republicans from their most dominant hold on the House since Harry Truman’s presidency — potentially expelling Democrats from the speaker’s chair for years to come.
In recent days, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has scrapped spending on behalf of two prominent candidates in districts the party had high hopes of snatching from the GOP: Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff, a former state House speaker once seen as the party’s best 2014 prospect; and Virginia Democrat John Foust, who is trying to defeat Republican Barbara Comstock, a hard-nosed former operative who played a key role in the investigations of President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.
The money that had been planned in those districts, where airing TV ads is costly, is being shifted to shore up incumbents and keep once-safe seats in the party’s column. Conservative outside groups in recent days have invested millions of dollars in races, erasing what had been a sizable Democratic financial advantage.
Democratic strategists say they’re trying to determine how much damage they might incur on election night. On Monday, the DCCC announced a $600,000 investment to save a suddenly endangered northeastern Iowa district that President Barack Obama won by 14 percentage points. It was an unmistakable sign of how much the political terrain has shifted against Democrats since the 2012 election.
Other similar moves could be on the way.
“Making these decisions is the hardest part of this job, but the amount of outside Republican money raining down on our incumbents means that we need to fine-tune our reservations,” New York Rep. Steve Israel, the DCCC chairman, wrote in an email. “It hurts to scale back any ad buy, but especially when you have strong candidates like Foust and Romanoff who are polling well, have momentum and could win their races.”
Democrats are now almost exclusively playing defense. Of the 28 districts seen as most seriously in contention, all but seven are held by Democrats. Republicans are virtually assured to expand their current 17-seat majority; strategists have pegged GOP gains at six to eight seats. But if Republicans can reach their goal of netting 11 seats, they will have their largest majority since 1949.
The good news for Democrats is that, at least for now, there’s no indication that Republicans are poised for a double-digit gain. Of the 18 Democratic incumbents in the most challenging races, pollsters from both parties say, there isn’t one who appears certain to lose. While 2014 is shaping up to be a good year for Republicans, they add, it does not yet resemble the wave-like environment of 1994 and 2010 for Republicans, or 2006 and 2008 for Democrats.
Republicans are hopeful that a late push from deep-pocketed conservative groups could yield bigger gains. Over the final three weeks of the campaign, GOP-aligned outside organizations have reserved more than $22 million worth of commercial airtime in competitive districts across the county, nearly double the investment from third-party Democratic groups.
During the final stretch of the election, few Democrats will be targeted with more cash from GOP-friendly outfits than California Rep. Ami Bera, who was first elected two years ago. Conservative groups will spend nearly $3 million against Bera, far outpacing their liberal counterparts.
In that race and others, conservative groups are coordinating their efforts to avoid overlap. On Tuesday, American Action Network began airing a TV commercial attacking Bera for his support of Obamacare. That ad will run through Oct. 20, and the next day, Congressional Leadership Fund, a group with close ties to Speaker John Boehner, will begin a commercial buy in the district that will go on for a week. Finally, the baton will be passed to the Karl Rove-founded American Crossroads, which will air ads for the final week leading up to Election Day...
