Republicans are pouring emergency campaign cash into gerrymandered congressional districts as races once considered comfortably secure suddenly look genuinely competitive, according to a new report.
Several of those threatened seats sit in Texas, where Republicans gerrymandered new lines just last year hoping to secured them for a generation, according to The New York Times.
Now Trump’s political operation is funneling money into races once considered guaranteed wins, alongside deep-red battlegrounds in Georgia, Kansas and Nebraska that weren’t supposed to be competitive at all, according to the report.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) summed up Democrats’ mood bluntly, saying, “We have never felt better,” though he cautioned, “It’s not an easy map.”
A mix of economic frustration is squeezing Republicans from every direction. Fresh interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve mean pricier auto loans and credit card balances right as households are already stretched thin, while Trump has warned gas prices won’t ease before the midterms with strategic petroleum reserves sitting at a 44-year low. A recent Times/Siena survey put Democrats ahead by roughly nine points on the generic ballot question — numbers reminiscent of the last true wave election Democrats rode to victory back in 2018.
“Republicans are panicking and are on the brink of losing the House, with the Senate not far behind,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
Georgia looks especially shaky for the GOP, according to the report. Republican strategists are privately weighing whether to abandon the state’s Senate race entirely, where nominee Mike Collins has trailed Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff throughout the campaign and was conspicuously left off a slide of the party’s top Senate recruits shown at a Dallas donor meeting. Georgia is currently the only top-nine Senate battleground where Democrats actually outspend Republicans on advertising, according to AdImpact data.
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance campaigned in Kansas, a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1932, while a brand-new super PAC in Nebraska scrambled to book nearly $4 million in ads defending a billionaire Republican incumbent against an independent candidate. Kansas Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton said Vance’s visit alone told him everything he needed to know.
“The fact that they sent the vice president, I thought, was a really great sign,” Hamilton said. “I just had to go, ‘Wow, cool.’ They realize this thing is in play.”
Even deep-red House seats aren’t safe anymore. Democratic campaign strategists say they’re now actively fighting for dozens of Republican-held districts nationwide, including Kentucky’s 6th District, which Trump carried by 15 points in 2024 but where Democratic candidate Zach Dembo says frustration over tariffs hitting farmers and the bourbon industry has shifted the ground beneath Republicans’ feet. A similar dynamic is playing out against Rep. Lauren Boebert in rural Colorado, where Navy veteran Eileen Laubacher is mounting an unexpectedly serious challenge in a district Trump won by 18 points.
Republicans insist their financial advantage, more than $140 million booked in advertising since Labor Day, will carry them through once voters start paying closer attention. House GOP campaign chief Richard Hudson argued the real problem isn’t Trump’s unpopularity but simple awareness.
“A lot of voters don’t know the policies we passed,” he said.
Still, cracks are showing even among Republicans themselves, with Iowa Reps. Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks breaking ranks this week to vote alongside Democrats demanding an end to the Iran war, and fellow Iowa Republican Ashley Hinson skipping a Trump rally while touting her bipartisan credentials in a new ad.
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