Dem
51
GOP
49
As we've noted a few times in the past week or two, we are in prime "put up or shut up" territory when it comes to next year's House elections. The holidays are right around the corner, and then the primaries are right around the next corner, and so now's the time for members and wannabe members to make their moves.
Yesterday came three bits of news on this front. First, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) has decided that 14 terms will be enough for him, so he's retiring from his seat representing OR-03 at the end of this Congress. Blumenauer is known for being laser-focused on one issue, and that issue is... bicycling. He always wears a bicycle pin on his lapel, he is founder and co-chair of the Congressional Bike Caucus, and he's constantly pushing for more funding for bike lanes and related infrastructure. OR-03 is D+22 and hasn't been represented by a Republican since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, so Blumenauer is surely going to be replaced by a member of the blue team. Let's see, is any member of the Oregon legislature fanatical about roller skating? Bobsledding? Gondoliering?
Meanwhile, to the south of Blumenauer, defrocked speaker Kevin McCarthy now has a mega-MAGA challenger in the form of perennial candidate and person of questionable sanity David Giglio. McCarthy's district, CA-20, is R+16 and he won it 67.2% to 32.8% in 2022. Given California's top-two-finisher system, we suppose we could see a situation where a MAGA candidate gets 40% of the vote in the primary, leaving McCarthy with just 27%, and thus out of a job. But we don't think it likely, since McCarthy is pretty popular in his district and he has more money in the bank than any four other House candidates. And if it does happen, it probably won't be Giglio who does it.
Finally, we have our first hot, hot member-on-member action of the cycle. In view of the new maps in Alabama, there is going to be a current member of the House tossed out on his white, conservative rear end. It is the district of Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) that will be all Black and blue next cycle, and rather than try to swim upstream, he announced yesterday that he will take on Rep. Jerry Carl (R-AL) in the R+16 AL-01. Playing the victim card, or perhaps the underdog card (we can't tell), Moore decreed: "I am a true conservative, and the system doesn't like a true conservative." Surely a fair assessment—if there's one place a right-winger can't get a fair shake, it's Alabama, right? In any case, Carl is familiar to the voters of the district, so we presume that when the current Congress expires, Moore will be packing his bags and leaving Washington. (Z)