Democrats fear they might be reaching too far in push for huge House margin

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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declared Wednesday that the path to a Democratic majority goes through Trump country, with his party seriously battling for seats that the president won by double digits two years ago.

But with limited resources, there’s still friction over whether to play it safe, or try to run up the margin.

The tension inside the party came into focus this week when Democrats added six, fresh Democratic candidates to the list of pickup opportunities it felt worth prioritizing from districts in Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, New York, Nevada and Tennessee – all of which President Donald Trump carried, two of them by more than 20 points. In a party already struggling with money – and trying to also win in places like Ohio, Oklahoma and Indiana, where the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has identified districts as in play – some lawmakers and strategists wondered whether the list missed the mark.

One Democratic lawmaker called the party’s House campaign arm on Monday, demanding an explanation on how it is deciding which races to highlight and invest in.

“We are dealing with a lot of upset candidates out there who are wondering why they didn’t make the cut. And it’s just a function of limited resources that have to be spread around an ever-expanding map,” the lawmaker told CNN.

That lawmaker raised in particular why the list of pickups didn’t include Democrat Fred Wellman, who is running to unseat GOP Rep. Ann Wagner in Missouri in a district Trump won by 7.9 points. That is a smaller margin than some of the other races added to the list. The lawmaker said party leaders shared there were about a half dozen other candidates in similar races that the party doesn’t have the resources to support. Wellman’s campaign declined to comment.

Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi, who is running in New York’s 3rd Congressional District and is being outspent more than two-to-one during the final four weeks of his tough re-election bid, said he feels the party might be gambling by focusing too much on pickups, rather than holding on to seats like his.

“My life would be a lot easier if they gave me more money. It’s a risky strategy. But I support the leadership and their strategy and if we all win on Election Night, it’s going to be a great victory,” Suozzi told CNN.

DCCC Executive Director Julie Merz said in a statement, “We have calibrated our limited resources district-by-district to ensure we re-elect our Frontliners and flip enough seats to win the majority.”

“The simple truth is: the national environment continues to deteriorate for Republicans and the more we raise in these final weeks - the more we can expand the number of districts in play.”

Jeffries said the party is focused on taking back the majority – but he did not detail what margin they might try to create to help them govern more comfortably.

“We’re working hard to get to 218, and then to win as many seats as we can on top of it,” Jeffries said. He added that the “overwhelming majority of seats that we’re working hard to flip” in Trump-won seats are ones he carried from the “mid-to-low single digits into ones that he may have won by 12-15 points.”

The decisions are not easy. Trump’s popularity is plummeting, the cost of living and diesel prices are skyrocketing, and the unpopular Iran war rages on. But despite an eye-popping $230 million fundraising haul, Democrats have consistently had to contend with Trump’s $400 million war chest.

Even the House Majority PAC, the House Democrats’ political action committee, has publicly acknowledged that expanding the map requires more money.

“To maintain our momentum, we must close our $38.5 million budget gap by the October 21 operational deadline,” Executive Director Abby Curran Horrell said in an email to donors shared with CNN. “We recently announced that we’re expanding the battlefield and investing in additional competitive districts. Additional programming requires additional resources.”

Jeffries said he believed that Democrats had neutralized one of the GOP’s biggest advantages in this year’s midterms — the gerrymandering war. “Under no circumstances are Republicans winning five seats in Texas or four seats in Florida. In fact, they may not get the five when you combine the two biggest Republican states together,” he said, noting that GOP leaders had initially believed they’d win nine seats between the two states.

And he said Trump on the campaign trail was helping.

“The more Donald Trump campaigns for Republicans across the country, the better the opportunity for Democrats to further convince the American people that we are the only ones determined to make life affordable for them,” Jeffries said.

Some operatives, lawmakers and aides, though, argue that the party should not try to expand the map too far into new districts with the limited resources available, but rather make sure the safer seats are protected.

“Democrats need to expand the map, but we also need to be really focused on what are the winnable races,” a longtime Democratic campaign aide told CNN. “You don’t get extra points for only losing by one point. This is about building a majority and flipping the House and flipping the Senate. So, losing a couple states or a couple districts that were Trump + 16 and only losing them by one or two. I mean yeah, that’s a nice moral victory, but this shit matters. We need to win.”

Of the 46 races listed on the party’s coveted “Red to Blue” list, House Majority PAC has put money behind 28 of them and is scheduled to spend in at least 15 more between now and Election Day. There are 12 races the group is involved in where Trump won by 10 points or more, according to AdImpact. Between now and Election Day, they’ve made reservations in seven more districts that Trump carried by at least 10 points, according to AdImpact.

In races in Nebraska, California and Michigan, the group has taken money out, according to AdImpact, because they feel so confident about their chances there. Outside organizations like Michael Bloomberg’s group, Everytown, are filling in 8 high-profile races across the country that have long been on Democrats’ target list so the House Majority PAC can move its money elsewhere, including in more competitive and red-leaning areas.

From Friday through Election Day, the House Majority PAC is set to be the largest advertiser in the midterms, spending a total of $171 million, according to AdImpact. The Republican counterpart, Congressional Leadership Fund, has about $108 million booked over the same final stretch.

To be sure, lawmakers argue, deciding whether to play it safe or try to run up the score is a good problem to have, and the options are not mutually exclusive.

Adding members to the “Red to Blue” list is also not a promise of resources, but rather a signal to donors to pay attention to certain races. And many of the latest additions are in cost effective markets where a small investment late in the game can go a lot further than in places like New York or Texas, where the media market is expensive and crowded.

“Red to Blue is what you make of it,” a Democratic strategist who works with ‘Red to Blue’ candidates told CNN. “It’s kind of on you once you get that designation to go out and fundraise off of it and convince donors that it’s worthwhile.”

Some Democratic groups, like VoteVets, have taken a more targeted approach on where they put their money, focusing on “where Democrats can win, and not betting on the lucky loser,” according to a Democratic operative. Many in the party are still haunted by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss to Trump, which they blame in part on a desire to run up the score rather than win true battlegrounds.

“I think the question is, with the resources that we have, where do we put them? I always think about Hillary 2016 as something that no Democrat has forgotten,” a Democratic strategist told CNN.

The party has seen some early indications it can be successful in targeting an expanded map.

Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan had been advocating for the DCCC to add Mitchell Berman, the Democrat trying to unseat House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil in Wisconsin, to the list of races it felt worthy of trying to flip, but it wasn’t until the party’s own polling saw the gap closing in September that it finally happened.

At the time, some in the party were surprised given Steil’s outsized cash advantage.

“I was not a believer of this race two weeks ago. And in fact, if you called me and asked me about it, I would have been like no way in hell,” a Democratic operative, who worked on expanding the map for Democrats during the 2018 blue wave, told CNN.

Since then, Mitchell has closed the polling gap. Then the money started coming in: the DCCC has made a $271,000 ad buy, and House Majority PAC has bought $880,000 worth of digital ads, according to the HMP email shared with CNN. Strategists point out that going on offense in districts like Steil’s forced Republicans to then divert resources they could have spent elsewhere.

Now that operative is singing a different tune, telling CNN, “it’s just indicative of the environment.” And Pocan said the GOP’s fundraising advantage might not be the obstacle many feared.

“I think the real story we’re going to be talking about at the end of November or mid-November is going to be the story that money didn’t have, for maybe the first time, the same influence it normally does,” Pocan told CNN.

The stakes for Democrats are high. As the last two years have demonstrated, a narrow majority is harder to keep together to pass legislation and achieve your party’s priorities.

“The bigger majority we have going into January 3rd and the 120th Congress, the more ability we will have to govern, to actually make a difference in people’s lives,” said Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider, who represents a coalition of moderate Democrats in the House and is trying to help the party flip more seats. “I don’t think we should be backing candidates because they’re working really hard, and we just want them to know we love them for their effort, but we don’t think they’re going to win. We should be playing in races where we have a shot at winning.”

CNN’s David Wright and Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.

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众议院少数党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯周三宣布，民主党要想获得多数席位，就必须经过特朗普的票仓，他的政党正在为总统两年前以两位数优势赢得的席位展开激烈的争夺。

但由于资源有限，究竟是应该稳妥行事，还是应该努力扩大利润空间，仍然存在争议。

本周，民主党内部的紧张局势凸显出来。民主党将六位新候选人列入优先争取的选区名单，这些选区分别位于阿肯色州、科罗拉多州、佛罗里达州、纽约州、内华达州和田纳西州——而这些选区此前均被特朗普总统拿下，其中两个选区特朗普的得票率超过20个百分点。鉴于民主党本已面临资金短缺的困境，并且还要在俄亥俄州、俄克拉荷马州和印第安纳州等民主党国会竞选委员会认定的摇摆选区中力争获胜，一些议员和策略师质疑这份名单是否选错了人。

周一，一位民主党议员致电该党众议院竞选机构，要求解释其如何决定重点关注和投资哪些竞选。

这位议员告诉CNN：“我们看到很多候选人感到失望，他们不明白自己为什么没能入选。这只是因为资源有限，而选区范围却在不断扩大。”

这位议员特别指出，新增席位名单中为何没有包括民主党候选人弗雷德·韦尔曼（Fred Wellman）。韦尔曼正在密苏里州竞选，挑战共和党众议员安·瓦格纳（Ann Wagner）的席位。特朗普在该选区以7.9个百分点的优势获胜。与其他一些新增席位相比，这个差距要小。这位议员表示，党内领导人透露，还有大约六位候选人也在类似的选区竞选，但党内资源不足以支持他们。韦尔曼的竞选团队拒绝置评。

民主党众议员汤姆·苏奥齐正在竞选纽约州第三国会选区议员，在他艰难的连任竞选的最后四周，他的竞选经费比对手少了超过两倍。他表示，他感觉民主党可能过于注重争取新席位，而不是保住像他这样的席位，这是一种赌博。

“如果他们给我更多钱，我的生活会轻松得多。这是一个冒险的策略。但我支持领导层和他们的策略，如果我们都能在选举之夜获胜，那将是一场伟大的胜利，”苏奥齐告诉CNN。

DCCC执行主任朱莉·默兹在一份声明中表示：“我们已经逐个选区地调整了有限的资源，以确保我们的前线人员能够连任，并赢得足够的席位，从而获得多数席位。”

“事实很简单：共和党在全国的处境持续恶化，我们在最后几周筹集的资金越多，我们就能扩大竞选的选区数量。”

杰弗里斯表示，该党的目标是夺回多数席位，但他没有详细说明他们可能会争取多大的优势来帮助他们更轻松地执政。

杰弗里斯说：“我们正努力争取达到218个席位，然后尽可能多地赢得其他席位。”他还补充说，我们正在努力翻盘的“绝大多数席位”都是特朗普原本以个位数优势赢得的，而这些优势他可能在“原本的领先优势只有12到15个百分点”的情况下才被拿下。

这些决定并不容易。特朗普的支持率暴跌，生活成本和柴油价格飞涨，不得人心的伊朗战争仍在继续。尽管民主党筹集到了惊人的2.3亿美元资金，但他们始终不得不与特朗普4亿美元的竞选资金抗衡。

就连众议院民主党政治行动委员会——众议院多数党政治行动委员会也公开承认，扩大选区范围需要更多资金。

“为了保持发展势头，我们必须在10月21日运营截止日期前填补3850万美元的预算缺口，”执行主任艾比·柯伦·霍雷尔在一封发给捐赠者的邮件中写道，这封邮件也分享给了CNN。“我们最近宣布，我们将扩大竞选范围，并投资于更多竞争激烈的地区。增加项目需要更多资源。”

杰弗里斯表示，他相信民主党已经抵消了共和党在今年中期选举中的最大优势之一——选区划分之争。“共和党绝不可能在德克萨斯州赢得五个席位，也不可能在佛罗里达州赢得四个席位。事实上，即使把这两个共和党最大的州加起来，他们也未必能拿到五个席位。”他说道，并指出共和党领导人最初认为他们会在这两个州共赢得九个席位。

他还说，特朗普在竞选活动中发挥了作用。

杰弗里斯说：“唐纳德·特朗普在全国各地为共和党人助选越多，民主党人就越有机会进一步说服美国人民，只有我们才决心让他们的生活负担得起。”

不过，一些党内人士、议员和助手认为，鉴于资源有限，该党不应该试图将选区版图扩大到太多新的选区，而应该确保更安全的席位得到保护。

一位资深的民主党竞选助手告诉CNN：“民主党需要扩大版图，但我们也必须真正专注于那些能够拿下的选区。仅仅以一个百分点的微弱劣势落败并不会给你带来额外的优势。关键在于建立多数席位，并拿下众议院和参议院。所以，输掉几个州或几个选区，而这些选区原本是特朗普领先16个百分点的，仅仅以一两个百分点的劣势落败，这当然是一场不错的精神胜利，但这事关重大。我们必须赢。”

在民主党备受瞩目的“红转蓝”名单上的46场竞选中，众议院多数党政治行动委员会（House Majority PAC）已投入资金支持其中28场，并计划在选举日之前至少再投入15场。据AdImpact报道，该组织参与的12场竞选中，特朗普的得票率均在10个百分点以上。AdImpact还指出，从现在到选举日，他们已在另外7个特朗普得票率至少10个百分点的选区预留了竞选资金。

据AdImpact报道，由于对在内布拉斯加州、加利福尼亚州和密歇根州的竞选形势充满信心，该组织已撤回部分资金。与此同时，像迈克尔·布隆伯格的“Everytown”这样的外部组织正在填补全国8场备受瞩目的竞选空缺，这些竞选长期以来都是民主党的重点目标，以便众议院多数党政治行动委员会能够将资金转移到其他地区，包括竞争更激烈、倾向共和党的地区。

据AdImpact报道，从周五到选举日，众议院多数党政治行动委员会（House Majority PAC）将成为中期选举中最大的广告商，总支出达1.71亿美元。共和党的对应机构——国会领导基金（Congressional Leadership Fund）在同一阶段的广告支出约为1.08亿美元。

当然，立法者们认为，决定是采取稳妥策略还是争取大比分是一个幸福的烦恼，而且这两种选择并非互斥的。

将成员加入“红转蓝”名单并不代表承诺提供资源，而是向捐助者发出信号，让他们关注某些选情。而且，许多最新加入的成员都来自成本较低的市场，在这些市场，后期的小额投资比在纽约或德克萨斯等媒体市场成本高昂且竞争激烈的地区投入更多。

一位与“红转蓝”候选人合作的民主党策略师告诉CNN：“‘红转蓝’能否成功取决于你自己的努力。一旦获得这个称号，就得靠自己去筹款，并说服捐助者相信这是值得的。”

一些民主党团体，例如VoteVets，采取了更有针对性的资金投入策略，一位民主党人士表示，他们专注于“民主党能够获胜的地区，而不是押注那些侥幸落败的候选人”。许多民主党人仍然对希拉里·克林顿在2016年败给特朗普耿耿于怀，他们认为部分原因是当时民主党人急于扩大票数，而不是赢得真正的摇摆州。

一位民主党策略师告诉CNN：“我认为问题在于，我们拥有的资源应该用在哪里？我始终认为，希拉里2016年的竞选是每个民主党人都记忆犹新的事情。”

该党已初步看到一些迹象表明，它在扩大目标版图方面能够取得成功。

民主党众议员马克·波坎一直呼吁民主党国会竞选委员会将米切尔·伯曼（民主党人，试图在威斯康星州击败众议院行政委员会主席布莱恩·斯蒂尔）列入值得争取翻盘的竞选名单，但直到该党自己的民调显示9月份差距缩小后，这一行动才最终实现。

当时，考虑到斯蒂尔的巨额资金优势，党内一些人对此感到惊讶。

“两周前我根本不相信这场选举会赢。事实上，如果你打电话问我这件事，我肯定会说绝对不可能，”一位曾在2018年民主党“蓝色浪潮”期间参与扩大民主党版图的民主党人士告诉CNN。

此后，米切尔缩小了民调差距。随后资金开始涌入：据CNN获得的HMP邮件显示，民主党国会竞选委员会（DCCC）斥资27.1万美元购买广告，众议院多数党政治行动委员会（House Majority PAC）购买了价值88万美元的数字广告。策略师指出，在像斯蒂尔所在的选区发起攻势，迫使共和党人将原本可以用于其他方面的资源转移过来。

现在，这位幕僚的说法却截然不同，他告诉CNN，“这只是当前环境的反映。”波坎表示，共和党的筹款优势可能并非许多人担心的障碍。

“我认为我们在 11 月底或 11 月中旬真正要讨论的故事将是，金钱或许第一次没有像往常那样发挥同样的影响力，”波坎告诉 CNN。

对民主党而言，形势严峻。过去两年已经证明，仅凭微弱多数席位很难维持下去，也就难以通过立法并实现党内优先事项。

“我们在1月3日第120届国会开始时拥有的多数席位越多，我们就越有能力执政，越能真正改善人民的生活，”民主党众议员布拉德·施耐德说道。他代表着众议院中一个温和派民主党联盟，并正努力帮助民主党赢得更多席位。“我认为我们不应该仅仅因为候选人非常努力就支持他们，我们只是想让他们知道我们欣赏他们的付出，但我们并不认为他们会赢。我们应该参与那些我们有胜算的竞选。”

CNN的David Wright和Sarah Ferris对本报道亦有贡献。