Dem
47
GOP
53
Chair Suzan DelBene of the DCCC has expanded her target list for 2026. She added a dozen red districts that Donald Trump won by double digits in 2024. The lady definitely likes to roll the bones. Here are the new targets:
| District | Incumbent | Trump '24 margin | PVI |
| CO-03 | Jeff Hurd | 9.7% | R+5 |
| NY-01 | Nick LaLota | 10.0% | R+4 |
| NE-01 | Mike Flood | 13.0% | R+6 |
| NV-02 | Open (Amodei) | 13.9% | R+7 |
| TX-23 | Vacant | 14.8% | R+7 |
| FL-12 | Gus Bilirakis | 15.3% | R+17 |
| AR-02 | French Hill | 15.5% | R+8 |
| NC-09 | Richard Hudson | 15.9% | R+8 |
| IN-05 | Victoria Spartz | 16.8% | R+8 |
| CO-04 | Lauren Boebert | 18.3% | R+9 |
| NY-21 | Open (Stefanik) | 20.7% | R+10 |
| TN-09 | Open (Cohen) | 21.1% | R+9 |
Remember, this is not just a wish list. It means she is going to spend money in these quite red districts. Given a finite amount of money, this means less money for EVEN to R+3 districts. She must be very confident that the easier districts won't take much money. Maybe she has seen polling showing her earlier targets already going down, so she feels free to go after much more difficult targets, even though that means less money for the purple-red districts. If she guesses right, she will be the GOAT of the Democratic Party. If she guesses wrong and some of the Democrats in the EVEN to R+3 districts lose, she will be the goat of the Democratic Party.
One cautionary tale here comes from 2016. Hillary Clinton spent time campaigning in Arizona, which was a red state then. This was an audacious move. But she didn't bother to campaign in Wisconsin at all, assuming it was in the bag. The bag had a hole, though, and Wisconsin fell out.
It is also possible that DelBene doesn't really think she can knock off, say, Lauren Boebert. She might just be playing mind games with Richard Hudson, who is chair of the NRCC. By suggesting that she is going to spend money to go after this dirty dozen, that could trick him into wasting money to defend seats that she really isn't going to target. On the other hand, he could be thinking "She is trying to trick me, I'm not going to fall for it" and not spend money there, only to later discover that she did go after those seats aggressively. Of course, a huge amount depends on how much money falls to the ground when DelBene shakes the money tree. Unlike the hapless Ken Martin at the DNC, DelBene is pretty good at this. She ran the DCCC in the 2023-2024 cycle and snagged $320 million. That is more than the DSCC ($276M), the NRSC ($297M), and the NRCC ($255M). This is why she got a second term running the DCCC: She's good at it. And Democrats are even more fired up now than in 2024. Also, all the news about the disaster at the DNC probably isn't going to dampen Democratic enthusiasm. It will simply redirect donations to the DCCC, the DSCC, and individual candidates.
DelBene probably saw the generic House poll from CNN/SSRS. Generic Democrat beats a generic Republican by 8 points. If that is still true when voting starts, then R+5, R+6 and maybe even R+7 districts are worthwhile targets, depending on how good the Democrat is and how bad the Republican is. Flipping an R+8 district with an 8-point lead is touch and go, but not out of the question. It is a gamble. Of course, if the Democrats' lead in the generic poll grows to 9 or 10 points, then Katie bar the door. There are 80 House districts held by Republicans that are R+9 or bluer. If the generic poll grows to D+10, many of those will be swept away easily and all of them will be competitive. (V)