JOHNSTON, RI – Seth Magaziner, a Democratic candidate for an open House seat, stood last week at a senior center in this working-class suburb of Providence to warn that voting for his opponent would threaten security checks social.
“We can’t take that risk,” Magaziner told the senior center. “We can’t let Rhode Island’s 2nd congressional district be the place that put the fox in charge of the chicken coop.”
The district voted for Biden by nearly 14 points in 2020, and longtime Democratic Rep. Jim Langevin, who is retiring, has held it easily for more than two decades, winning by large margins even in strong years. for Republicans.
But Magaziner’s Republican opponent Allan Fung is threatening to breach the blue wall in New England, which has been a Democratic stronghold for nearly two decades.
Two recent polls showed Fung, a popular former mayor and the Republican nominee, with a slight lead.
He is one of a handful of New England Republicans – including candidates from Maine, New Hampshire and Connecticut – who have a chance of winning in an area where Republicans at the federal level were considered a species in Endangered. There are no New England Republicans in the House, and Senator Susan Collins (Maine) is the only Republican senator from the country’s northeast bloc.
The political environment appears to favor Republicans in House races across the country as the ruling party historically wins seats in a president’s first midterm. But New England Republicans point to additional factors in their favor, including a strong candidate cadre and a “perfect storm” of issues that include the high cost of energy and food as well as the rise of fentanyl in New England communities, which the GOP candidates say arrive in the North due to a lack of southern border security.
“I guess a perfect storm would be too easy an analogy, but the environment of the issue is perfect for a Republican,” said Dave Carney, a Republican political strategist from New Hampshire.
Republicans also support abortion, an issue that provided Democrats with minimal opportunity after Roe vs. Wade was overturned, does not resonate with voters in New England as much as it does in other parts of the country, as Northeastern states are unlikely to pass laws restricting access to abortion.
“I think a woman’s right to have an abortion is very important, and while that plays a part in people’s decision, I think I see firsthand that it falls on people’s ears a bit. a deaf here in New England,” said Scott Brown, a Republican who won the race to fill late Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts during an upset in 2010, only to lose re-election two years later. late.
No House Republican has represented New England since Rep. Bruce Poliquin (Maine), who is running this year against Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), lost re-election in 2018, but it’s been longer that Republicans have a strong presence in the region.
Republicans held nearly half of New England’s Senate seats and a quarter of House seats until the 2006 Democratic wave election, when Republicans lost the House. Four of the 30 Republican seats lost that year were in New England, leaving one Republican survivor in the House.
Sen. Lincoln Chafee (RR.I.) lost his seat in 2006 despite high approval ratings as Rhode Islanders vented their frustrations with President George W. Bush and congressional Republicans on him.
“People just didn’t want a Republican Senate,” Chafee said in an interview.
Now Republicans are betting New England voters unhappy with President Biden are ready to give the GOP a hard look. They are spending aggressively in the region, forcing Democrats to defend territory won by Biden in 2020.
Democrats argue that Republicans, as moderate as they promise to be, will have a hard time distancing themselves from the extreme party elements that dominate today’s GOP.
“The people of New England don’t want their representatives in Washington to push for abortion bans, allow violent insurgencies, and cut their Social Security and Medicare benefits – that’s why they have rejected the GOP’s MAGA brand cycle after cycle,” said James Singer, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Republicans are not well represented in the region, but in the mansions of the governors. Three of the country’s most popular governors – Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire and Phil Scott of Vermont – are New England Republicans.
But competitive House districts have different dynamics and often don’t include the states’ largest cities, and the more rural makeup lends itself to more moderate political instincts.
“Working class, and to add to that rural, that’s a good formula for Republicans,” said Dante Scala, professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. “Democrats can’t afford to be complacent and where could they be the ones saying, ‘What has Biden done for me? ”
In addition to Rhode Island, Republicans are targeting two seats in New Hampshire and one in Connecticut which Biden won in 2020, as well as a district in Maine which former President Donald Trump has won twice.
In Connecticut’s 5th District, George Logan, a former Republican state senator, is trying to unseat Democratic Representative Jahana Hayes in a seat formerly held by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who flipped the blue seat in 2006.
“Waterbury, Danbury, Torrington, those towns used to be pretty Democratic,” Murphy said in an interview. “But as factories closed and union families disappeared, they started to vote more Republican.”
Logan positions himself as a moderate, leaning on “reasonable leadership”, but has lagged in fundraising, raising a small fraction of Hayes’ loot, although his most recent fundraising totals for third quarter have not been published.
Signifying the importance of the race to Republicans, Rep. Elise Stefanik (RN.Y.), who won for the first time in upstate New York in a district carried by President Barack Obama, prioritized Republican incursions in the northeast. She hosted a fundraiser for Logan on Tuesday night.
“Republicans are absolutely going to dominate the Northeast, as one-party Democratic rule has led to inflation, skyrocketing energy and home heating bills, and a major crime crisis. House Republicans are poised to win seats across the region,” Stefanik told The Washington Post in a statement.
Barbara Ellis, Hayes’ campaign manager, said Logan’s confidence in the national party over the past few weeks is proof that he is no moderate.
“The GOP knows that if they win these purple districts in New England, they will have a path to a majority, so they can implement the MAGA agenda and [House Leader] Kevin McCarthy’s commitment to America,” she said. “Quite simply, winning a few seats will allow them to go back in time.”
The Post reached out to the Logan campaign multiple times for comment or an interview, but received no response.
Republican and Democratic operatives interviewed for this article acknowledged that the potential for Republican success this round could be fleeting.
“Let’s just say in case Allan Fung and George Logan come into Congress and stay with McCarthy and vote this extreme, extreme Republican line — they’re going to have a very short career,” said a Democratic official working to elect House Democrats. . , speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s election strategy in New England.
A Stefanik protegee and former Trump press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, is running against Rep. Chris Pappas (DN.H.). She doesn’t fit the mold of a moderate New England Republican and highlights culture war issues while emphasizing economics.
“I look forward to rocking this district red and serving as a much-needed conservative voice in Congress for our Live Free or Die state and our beautiful region of New England,” Leavitt said in a statement.
Pappas, elected in 2018, points out that his district often switches between parties and that he could be the first person to win a third term there since former Representative John E. Sununu won re-election in 2000.
“I think it’s a huge contrast between me and my opponent, who’s never worked across the aisle for anything,” Pappas said in an interview. Leavitt “just sort of read the MAGA talking points and pushed a pretty extreme agenda.”
The House Democratic and Allied Groups Campaign Committee and the House Republicans and Allied Groups Campaign Committee have spent more than $16 million on the region’s top four competitive races, and that doesn’t include not the expenses of the candidates themselves.
One of the critical issues specific to the Northeast that Republicans believe will work in their favor is the high cost of heating oil.
“I don’t know how people are going to get through the winter,” Poliquin said during a recent campaign, even in Lewiston.
The cost of heating oil – which is how a quarter of people in the North East heat their homes, especially in rural areas – has doubled in the past year and is the most expensive since at least 1992, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
“The Democrats have a natural advantage” in New England, Brown said. “However, I think this year is a very special year because this administration has done so poorly.”
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