Opinion: Advice for 18 at-risk GOP incumbents to keep the House

The unhappy 18 are betwixt and between. “The 18” are the Republican congressional incumbents who are up for reelection next year in new districts that Joe Biden would have carried in the 2020 presidential election. In those GOP-held districts, created in this year’s redistricting, voters would have favored Biden.

In many of those places, including in California, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania, Biden would have clobbered Donald Trump. That analysis does not bode well for the 18. No wonder they are unhappy.

If the Democrats have any prayer of taking back the House in 2024, knocking off the 18 is priority No. 1. The Dems have been plotting to do just that.

As the temperatures in the fall drop, election fever will rise. The 2024 campaigns will be spicy hot. If Republican leaders keep touting a possible government shutdown, a Biden impeachment and Hunter Biden’s laptop, Republicans in blue districts had better brace for a scalding.

The GOP currently runs the U. S. House with a nine-seat majority, one of the slimmest in the history of Congress.

Holding on to the 18 — and more — is crucial. Yet the Republican base seems destined to tap Trump as its 2024 presidential nominee. The four-time indicted former president will surely be at the top of the GOP ticket.

Next summer, the MAGA Man will be anointed at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. That’s all bad news for Republican incumbents, especially the 18. “I think the challenge for being a Republican in a front-line race or a highly vulnerable Republican this election is anything that you do that only crystallizes your MAGA standing amongst the party in a district that is likely to vote for Joe Biden just increases your likelihood of not going back to Washington,” Democratic strategist Dan Sena was quoted as saying in The New Republic.

Sena is a former executive director of House Democrats’ campaign operation. No wonder the 18 are unhappy. Recall, for example, the 15-round boxing match Trump’s buddy, U.

S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, suffered to get elected House speaker early this year.

McCarthy was able to cajole his caucus into submission, but it took him days to do it. His legislative legerdemain was painful to watch. A train wreck pales in comparison.

Now McCarthy is perpetually scrambling to meet the unmeetable demands of his ultraconservative brethren, while keeping his head above water just enough to keep it from getting chopped off. Yet, McCarthy dallies with calls to impeach Biden, investigate Biden’s son, Hunter, and all manner of other distractions to pacify the conservative rabble-rousers in his party. The unhappy 18 must know that if the GOP has a sliver of a chance of preserving its majority in the next Congress, it must eschew these hyperpartisan shenanigans.

It must balance the yin and the yang. It must make deals. If the Republican Party leans too far right, the 18 will get buried.

Hew to the middle and grab the Goldilocks moment. Not too hot, not too cold, but just enough to win. Speaking of heat: Summer may be departing, but the 18 will be sweating well into the fall.

After Labor Day, Washington will reboot its penchant for volatility. The political classes will reengage. The 18 and other sane Republican legislators have a responsibility to promote moderate, sensible government instead of political avarice.

As Mark Cuban, the wily “Shark Tank” investor and Dallas Mavericks owner, once declared, “Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. ” The 18 must push aside the hyperpartisan gamesmanship, do some deals and get things done. For example, they should bring sensible solutions to the negotiations to avert the looming government shutdown later this month.

It is about more than saving their seats. The 18 have the power to take an oil can to a squeaking and rusty legislative system. Congress is there to get laws passed, to keep the government above water and running.

That is why American voters send people to Congress. Holding on to their majority won’t be accomplished by going over a cliff. The 18 can make their mark.

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