Republican Party gives up on another House GOP incumbent race

| 11:00 pm EDT October 20, 2018
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Earlier this month we saw the fundraising wing of the Republican Party decide not to bother running TV advertising campaigns for multiple House GOP incumbents in California, including Mimi Walters and infamous Trump-Russia figure Dana Rohrabacher, despite those incumbents not being particularly far behind in the polls. It suggested that the deep pockets on the right simply weren’t willing to invest big money on the GOP’s sinking House prospects. Now the Republicans are also giving up elsewhere.

The Republican Party is now canceling television ad campaigns that it had been planning to run for House GOP incumbent Mike Coffman in Colorado, according to The Hill. FiveThirtyEight says that Coffman is about seven points down with just two and a half weeks to go, so this makes strategic sense. However, the GOP isn’t simply packing up and going home.

Even as the GOP gives up on Mike Coffman, it’s investing two million dollars into TV ad buys in the Florida House race to replace retiring Republican incumbent Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, which has shaped up to be a tight race. So the Republican Party is still clearly trying to notch at least some key wins in the House. But best anyone can tell, more GOP money is being pulled back than doled out. For instance, Rohrabacher and Walters each appeared to be only down by three points in their respective reelection bids at the time the GOP decided to pull the plug on them.

In other words, the Republican Party is indeed giving up on some winnable races. That means the big GOP donors simply aren’t willing to open up their wallets for House races across the board, presumably because those donors aren’t confident in the GOP’s chances of keeping the House. That creates an opportunity for the Resistance, which can use these final days to try to put House Democratic candidates over the top, in the name of winning a majority.