By any measure, a net gain of 63 House seats is a big win for a political party. But nearly a year after the 2010 elections, Republican leaders are still thinking about the ones that got away.
The National Republican Congressional Committee is targeting more than 40 districts in several states, including California, Iowa, New York, and North Carolina, where it thinks the party has a chance of defeating Democrats who survived the GOP wave of 2010. The committee is placing particular emphasis on Iowa and North Carolina. In recent weeks, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the NRCC’s recruiting chairman, has spent time on the ground in both states trying to woo top-tier candidates and hoping to capitalize on congressional-boundary shifts resulting from once-in-a-decade redistricting that will go into effect next year.
While most of the attention at this year’s Iowa State Fair was focused on the GOP presidential hopefuls sampling pork chops on a stick and pressing the flesh, Scalise was operating under the political radar on down-ballot recruitment in a quiet lounge at the Hilton Coliseum in Ames.
The National Republican Congressional Committee is targeting more than 40 districts in several states, including California, Iowa, New York, and North Carolina, where it thinks the party has a chance of defeating Democrats who survived the GOP wave of 2010. The committee is placing particular emphasis on Iowa and North Carolina. In recent weeks, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the NRCC’s recruiting chairman, has spent time on the ground in both states trying to woo top-tier candidates and hoping to capitalize on congressional-boundary shifts resulting from once-in-a-decade redistricting that will go into effect next year.
While most of the attention at this year’s Iowa State Fair was focused on the GOP presidential hopefuls sampling pork chops on a stick and pressing the flesh, Scalise was operating under the political radar on down-ballot recruitment in a quiet lounge at the Hilton Coliseum in Ames.