The flagship Democratic House super PAC is urging donors to pony up more cash in the final sprint before the midterms, pointing to private polling showing a slew of deep-red House seats within the party’s reach.
House Majority PAC told donors in a private memo, shared with The Washington Sun, that recent polling “shows that with additional resources, even more expansion seats are within reach.” The memo included polling data from 13 districts that President Donald Trump won by 8 to 21 percentage points in 2024, all of which shows those congressional races now in margin-of-error fights.
The memo is the latest evidence of Democrats’ increasing bullishness about their chance to retake the House — and the financial constraints they’re facing to capitalize on it. Last week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee made a similar plea to donors, arguing that “we could be leaving winnable races on the table without further investment from the DCCC,” according to a copy of the memo seen by The Sun.
HMP is now making a similar donor pitch: “Our polling shows that Democrats can compete in these districts, but translating that potential into additional victories will require resources to reach voters and make the case against vulnerable Republicans in the final sprint to Election Day.”
Trending
Democrats have for months warned of a fundraising disadvantage against Republicans, saying in early September that the GOP’s financial edge could blunt Republicans’ deteriorating political environment. That disparity is felt most acutely when comparing the Republican National Committee’s $97 million cash on hand to the Democratic National Committee’s $4 million, when factoring in outstanding debt. Trump’s allied super PACs have spent nearly $200 million on campaign advertising since September, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, and the president said in a Truth Social post that he planned to spend $400 million on the campaign.
But House Democratic candidates have held their own in fundraising, frequently outraising their GOP counterparts. HMP, too, raised a record-breaking $230 million in the third quarter, but the PAC is pushing for more.
The polling described in HMP’s memo found Democratic candidates leading by at least 1 percentage point in six of the districts, offering up more evidence for the shifting House battlefield. That’s reflected in TV ad reservation changes, too. Last week, the House GOP-aligned super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund canceled its defensive spending for Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) and Tom Kean Jr. (R-New Jersey). On Tuesday, the DCCC added spending in three districts in Arizona, Ohio and South Carolina that Trump won handily in 2024.
The polling memo spotlighted several under-the-radar races.
Take Missouri’s 2nd District, which Trump won by 8 percentage points in 2024. The HMP memo said its polling found Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Missouri) down by 1 point to Democrat Fred Wellman, who outraised Wagner last quarter. On Tuesday, CLF went up with a $650,000 ad buy to boost Wagner, according to AdImpact. HMP is not yet spending in the race.
Another example comes in North Carolina, where the memo said it found Rep. Richard Hudson, the National Republican Congressional Committee chair, up by only 4 percentage points over his Democratic challenger, Richard Ojeda, a former West Virginia state senator and veteran. Hudson started airing TV ads earlier this month. Trump won Hudson’s district by 16 percentage points in 2024.
Of the districts polled in the memo, HMP is already spending in six of the districts, including Kentucky’s 6th District and Florida’s 13th District, both of which Trump won by double digits.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the poll finding in Missouri’s 2nd District. The poll found Wagner down 1 point.
Author
