Image 01 Image 03

US House Tag

The Democrats need to hold all their seats and win 23 seats in order to have control of the House of Representatives. It looks like they're going to lose a seat in Minnesota's 8th District, which is a heavy Democrat district. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) decided to pull $1 million in funding to support Democrat candidate Joe Radinovich since his Republican opponent Pete Stauber has a 15 point lead!

Earlier this week, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) outlined the Democrat agenda if the party retakes the House next month. The Democrats need to hold all of their seats and win 23 more in order to take over. Pelosi spoke about the plan to Paul Krugman and said, “If there’s some collateral damage, for some others that don’t share our view, well so be it.”

Nellie Ohr, the wife of DOJ official Bruce Ohr and employee at GPS Fusion, has an closed door hearing with Congress on Friday, but now some say she has refused to make an appearance. Ohr worked at Fusion GPS, the company behind the infamous Steele dossier, from December 2015 until right after the election. Her husband spoke with Christopher Steele, the man who put together the dossier, and Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson during that time as well.

The Democrats continue to ooze confidence that the party will take control of the House of Representatives in November as Axios revealed the House Democrats already have an agenda for 2019 with health care taking center stage.

The Cook Political Report has moved three House GOP seats to Toss Up from Lean Republican after new polling came out. Another race slipped a little, moving to Lean Republican from Likely Republican. While it may not seem like a big deal, we know the Democrats want the House back and any momentum the Republicans lose, you know the Democrats will jump on the opportunity.

Former House Speaker and current House minority leader Nancy Pelosi may have believed him back in 2013 when then-President Obama assured the nation that Pelosi will again be speaker.  The 2014 midterms came and went, and then the 2016 presidential election, and still Pelosi does not hold the Speaker's gavel. And it looks like she may not hold it again, even if the Democrats manage to take back the House this November.  While Obama is among the few Democrat voices supporting Pelosi for Speaker these days, she has to be a bit worried that so many Democrat candidates are moving on and have been doing so for some time.

Federal prosecutors announced an indictment (pdf.) against Rep. Christopher Collins (R-NY) on insider trading charges and lying to the FBI along with his son Cameron Collins and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron's fiancee. The charges stem from the "securities of Australian biotechnology company called Innate Immunotherapeutics, where the congressman served on the board."

Republican Troy Balderson has a 50.2% lead in Ohio's 12th District special election over Democrat Danny O'Connor, who has 49.3% of the vote, to take over for Republican Rep. Pat Tiberi. The Republicans have held this seat for decades, but the Democrats saw an opportunity to give life to their supposed "blue wave" and poured an insane amount of money and attention into flipping this seat. Despite the vote count, both sides have claimed victory on this one. Yes, even the Democrats. They got so close, but does it matter? Should the Republicans be worried that it took a slim margin to win a historically Republican seat?

Should Republican congressional candidate Elizabeth Heng win California's 16th district seat this November, I might suggest she send the social justice brigade in charge of monitoring Facebook videos a big "Thank You." The social media giant's video team blocked one of her ads, but changed their mind once they received backlash.

Axios obtained a memo written by the office of Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, that plans for the government to takeover the internet and regulate digital platforms. From Reason:
To save American trust in "our institutions, democracy, free press, and markets," it suggests, we need unprecedented and undemocratic government intervention into online press and markets, including "comprehensive (GDPR-like) data protection legislation" of the sort enacted in the E.U.

As midterms approach, the generic ballot has been in flux. The Democrats began with a double-digit lead, this was whittled down significantly, and is now back up at around 8%.  Other factors make predicting whether or not Republicans can maintain control of the House difficult, but Republicans have an advantage in that even if there is a wave election, they may still retain the House.

Back on June 24, Professor Jacobson blogged about how Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) encouraged people to harass Republicans and officials within President Donald Trump's administration in public. Now Waters is facing a protest organized by Oath Keepers and she does not approve.