There have been a lot of changes in the House rankings recently, so I didn’t get a chance to put together my more longshotty House list yet. But I think it’s a good day to do some House fundraising. Here’s the two we have going so far.
Fifteen For Flipping (if we flip these, we have a majority of state delegations and Biden wins in case of a tie)
Balloon Juice House Tier 1 (15 Republican held seats that are listed as toss-up)
There’s one incumbent I’d like to help out, probably our most endangered one — Xochitl Torres Small. She’s from oil country and is catching flak for Biden’s commitment to fighting climate change.
Xochitl Torres Small (NM-02)
Kent
The WA-3rd is really heating up here in the Vancouver area. It is the last district touching the Pacific Coast south of Alaska that is in GOP hands. We are in the Portland media market and during the baseball and NFL games I’m seeing lots of ads for both Carolyn Long (D) and Jaime Herrera Beulter (MAGA incumbent). And I’m getting tons of mailings. Beutler is running a really vile sleaze campaign that is all negative and all lies. But I guess that’s all they have at this point.
Last polling in Aug or early Sept had Long down by 2 points. Who knows where the race is now. It’s an uphill battle as this is a GOP +4 district and 4 points was what separated these same two candidates in 2018. But who knows. All the national analysis sites have it as likely or lean Republican. But I have an outside hope that Long will take it. She’s an OK candidate but someone more local with deeper roots in the district might have run a better race. She has a bit of a carpetbagger from Portland flavor to her.
There go two miscreants
Dropped some in for Xochitl. I’ve sent some bucks her way previously also.
MazeDancer
Balloon-Juice helped elect Xochitl Torres Small in 2018 via the 1600 PostCards sent out by PostCard Patriots.
If you wrote for her then, gotta at least toss in a little now.
Her crew were the nicest, most organized of almost any.
Geoboy
Xochitl is wonderful and her opponent is horrible. Anything you can do to help her (money, phonebank, drive people to the polls) would be most appreciated.
dm
Probably sometime this weekend ActBlue will cross $1 billion raised since Ruth Bader Ginsburg died one month ago.
Aleta
Motivation
Related:
Eljai
I wrote postcards for Xochitl Torres Small in 2018. I’ll send her some money now. It seems like there has been a shift with more people showing concern about climate change, at least in some polls I have come across. I think average Americans are more in touch with this issue than your average pundit. But if Xochitl feels she has to distance herself from one of Biden’s comments, I’m not going to write her off. I don’t know her district that well but I’m sure she’s still better than a republican in that seat.
Mo Salad
So, you say we shouldn’t play, simply waste our day away?
Mary G
Threw in for her.
cain
The race for Peter Defazio’s (OR district 4) moved from blue to leans blue because the challenger is a 27 year old hero soldier – he’s one of the guys who help prevent a bombing in France. We should definitely be giving him some money so that we can make sure that we secure that seat. Peter’s been there since the late 80s and has been a fairly popular representative. These guys are like ticks they stick around forever.
The oregon democratic party thought it was not going to be a problem, and now they are feeling worried. I tossed him some money.
We really want to have the ability to not need the Republicans for quorum so we can pass some important climate related bills. So we have a fight on our hands.
Elizabelle
@Aleta: Thanks for those articles. Ugh.
DougJ
@Mo Salad:
Fond memories of that song for some reason
Elizabelle
In with a small donation to Xochitl. Keep New Mexico the blue Land of Enchantment.
Kent
@cain: Seriously. Defazio? OR-4th is the district in which Eugene and Corvallis are the two largest cities, surrounded by a lot of rural Oregon. I grew up there and it’s been blue for basically forever.
Sigh. I guess we need some new blood.
gene108
Is there a way to contact ActBlue to find out how long it takes them to send money they collect to campaigns?
Some websites that let you donate to charities can take a few weeks to remit the money to nonprofits.
I put some money in for all of these, but I hope ActBlue can clear these payments faster than some other places. Part of me is worried the money might not reach in time.
JanieM
@Aleta: One of Susan Collins’s pals, too.
Yarrow
Thanks for including Mike Siegel in the Tier 1 group. He’s running against the horrible Michael McCaul in TX-10, a ridiculously gerrymandered district. It goes from the far NW suburbs of Houston to the NW side of Austin. It’s huge. It’s also part of the carve up of Austin to dilute the Dem vote. I know McCaul is feeling the heat because there are a lot of ads by both him and Siegel. Healthcare seems to be a main focus.
Baud
Beto gets the medal of freedom if we get Texas.
Another Scott
@gene108: Given the thank-yous I get from candidates via ActBlue donations, I bet they get the money out very quickly. Like instantly.
Cheers,
Scott.
gene108
@Aleta:
Both Gorsuch and Kavanough worked on Ken Starr’s Special Counsel team that hounded President Clinton.
The fact people involved in that travesty have been so handsomely rewarded means there will continuing generations of fuckery afoot, and eager young conservative lawyers lining up for those jobs.
Kent
10-20 years from now a whole bunch of young fucks who are currently working in the White House will be rising to the top on some new conservative wave. Count on it.
Calouste
@Kent: I think Herrera Buetler is the only minority GOP woman in Congress.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I’d say he deserves it even if we don’t.
Aleta
@JanieM: wow.
Xavier
@Eljai: Torres Small has done great work on rural health care for her district. And yes, her opponent is horrible.
Kent
Her dad is Hispanic, her mom is white. She was raised in the White evangelical homeschool movement out on the outer fringe of this county with all the MAGA folk and was homeschooled by evangelicals up until HS.
But OK….If that’s as “woman of color” as they get in the GOP delegation then I guess so.
She’s not the worst of the bunch. She’s basically a back bencher and reliable GOP vote who puts on a bipartisan veneer in her local district outreach because this is a purple district. She’s not bright or ambitious enough to be a GOP leader.
J R in WV
@There go two miscreants:
I felt good last election when Xochi won, we kicked in to her campaign quite a bit. Same this time! I love to help Native American and immigrant candidates, as they have such a steep uphill battle to win in this nation.
AOC and Omar were both recipients of our donations last time up. I have trouble seeing how Torres-Small isn’t a favorite, given what a crap job the Rs have been doing. She is such a winning personality.
Oh well, it will be what it will be…
J R in WV
@gene108:
I don’t know this for a fact, but my impression is that ActBlue moves that money basically as quickly as possible with current technology. Perhaps not instantly, but really quickly.
They are not a for-profit corporation at all, they believe in progressive politics, which is why they do what they do…
ETA:
As @Another Scott: says:
Given the thank-yous I get from candidates via ActBlue donations, I bet they get the money out very quickly. Like instantly.
New Deal democrat
A reminder, if we are successful with the Fifteen for Flipping, we can tell *any* entity, including GOP state legislatures and the US Supreme Court, that might try shenanigans, to go pound sand, we are seating the Biden Electors and he is declared President.
RaflW
I just bumped for Xoch, and earlier today gave (again) to admitted longshot Rob Anderson in Lousiana.
Maybe folks saw the loony tweet by the incumbent R, about his wife’s alleged nightmare of a Left Wing Takeover. I donated and then made a helpful suggestion.
ciotogist
I just sent some $ to Moe Davis, who is running against the odious Madison Cawthorn.
West of the Cascades
@Baud: Beto gets Limbaugh’s Medal of Freedom after it’s pried out of Rush’s cold, dead fingers.