GOP Shouldn't Miss Its Chance To Make Red-State Gains | Opinion

As former president Donald J. Trump's near-certain lock on the 2024 GOP nomination and increasing poll leads over Joe Biden dominate the headlines, congressional races have attracted less attention. But they will matter much more than it may appear. The Democrats hold a slim lead in the Senate, with several seats leaning Republican in 2024, while the Republican House majority is razor thin and getting thinner now that controversial former New York representative George Santos has been expelled and former speaker Kevin McCarthy stepped down at the end of 2023.

With an unpopular presidential incumbent, congressional Democrats should be vulnerable. Generic polling published by FiveThirtyEight, however, shows a dead heat, with each party garnering 44 percent of popular support for control of Congress. As was the case in 2022, control of the House will likely come down to a handful of races, with the Democrats needing a net win of just five seats to secure a majority.

Which races will provide those critical seats poses a dilemma. Aggressive GOP strategists are naturally looking to swing states, where determined efforts in congressional and other state campaigns could help Trump secure victories that he will need for reelection. Races in red states are less necessary for that goal, but Republicans should still look to those states pick up seats to hold or expand their House majority.

Take Florida, for example. In 2022, it was one of the very few places where the predicted "Red Tsunami" actually materialized. Incumbent Republican governor and current presidential candidate Ron DeSantis was reelected by a crushing 19 points, while Republicans won all statewide offices and supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature. Republicans also won 20 of the state's 28 congressional districts.

As Florida has turned solidly red, holding the eight remaining blue districts will pose a challenge for the Democrats and an opportunity for the GOP. In the case of the state's 22nd District, which includes much of West Palm Beach and some of its surrounding communities, pro-GOP sentiment is rising even though Democrat incumbent Lois Frankel defeated her 2022 Republican challenger by more than 10 points.

According to a confidential voter analysis study made available to me, new Republican registrations in FL-22 exceeded new Democrat registrations in 20 of the 21 months leading up to October 2023, while party switches of currently registered voters have favored the GOP by a three-to-one margin. The report predicts these trends will continue, with Republican and independent registrations rising over the next year as the number of registered Democrats declines.

Andrew Gutmann, a leading candidate for the Republican nomination in FL-22 and a nationally known champion of school reform, recently told me "We're witnessing a dramatic realignment of voter registrations in Palm Beach County over the past three years, with rapidly declining Democrat registrations and rising Republican and independent registrations. District 22 is no longer a safe Democratic district and is now highly competitive, with a Republican candidate like myself who can appeal to independent voters."

Notably, in 2022, DeSantis won surrounding Palm Beach County—a blue bastion where Biden won 56 percent of the vote in 2020—and lost among FL-22 voters by only three points. A Republican challenger resting on a solid GOP turnout could unseat Frankel in 2024. "I think the data means we're going to win," added Gutmann.

Texas also offers opportunities for Republican congressional gains. South Texas, a historically Democratic region that bears the brunt of the migrant crisis and consequently heavy budgetary and law enforcement burdens, has significantly reddened in recent years. In 2022, GOP challenger Monica De La Cruz won Texas's 15th District, which had never before elected a Republican, after having lost by less than three points in 2020. Some observers credited her win to redistricting, but TX-15 had an identical percentage of Hispanics (74 percent) both before and after its boundaries changed.

In a special election held that same year in Texas's 34th District, GOP candidate Mayra Flores won by an absolute majority in a race to complete the term of a Democratic incumbent who had resigned. She went on to lose in the general election to Vicente Gonzalez, a conservative Democrat who voted against Biden's proposed assault weapons ban. Even so, Flores lost the general election by just eight points in a district that had favored Democrats by 14 points in 2020 and 25 points as recently as 2016. At that rate of blue decline, the district could easily turn red next year. "Gone are the days of unquestioned Democratic control," opined the Texas Tribune of the area's political future after the last midterms. In Texas' nearby 28th District, moreover, longtime incumbent Democrat Henry Cuellar's victory margin declined from an overpowering 69 points in 2018 to just 13 points in 2022.

As GOP operatives consider where to place their energy, attention, and resources in this November's congressional contest, they would do well to realize that the path to victory—or at least not losing—might just be found in their own backyard.

Paul du Quenoy is President of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.