Politics Ain't Dead

Charles Gaba has a typically great, fact-filled post about vulnerable Members of Congress and the percentage of Medicaid recipients in their districts. Your MoC might be in his list of members who are Toss-Ups, Lean Republican or Likely Republican at Cook Political Report:

• AK-AL Nick Begich: 38.0%

• AZ-01 David Schweikert: 21.3%

• AZ-02 Eli Crane: 37.1%

• AZ-06 Juan Ciscomani: 28.6%

• CA-03 Kevin Kiley: 27.3%

• CA-22 David Valadao: 64.1%

• CA-40 Young Kim: 26.3%

• CA-41 Ken Calvert: 35.3%

• CO-03 Jeff Hurd: 34.1%

• CO-08 Gabe Evans: 26.5%

• FL-13 Anna Paulina Luna: 27.4%

• IA-01 Mariannette Miller-Meeks: 24.4%

• IA-03 Zach Nunn: 25.3%

• MI-04 Bill Huizenga: 24.3%

• MI-07 Tom Barrett: 20.9%

• MI-10 John James: 29.1%

• MT-01 Ryan Zinke: 27.6%

• NE-02 Don Bacon: 22.8%

• NJ-07 Thomas Kean: 14.4%

• NY-17 Michael Lawler: 34.6%

• PA-01 Brian Fitzpatrick: 20.0%

• PA-07 Ryan Mackenzie: 27.4%

• PA-08 Robert Bresnahan: 33.5%

• PA-10 Scott Perry: 28.8%

• TX-15 Monica De La Cruz: 40.4%

• VA-01 Robert Wittman: 19.3%

• VA-02 Jennifer Kiggans: 22.0%

• WI-01 Bryan Steil: 27.1%

• WI-03 Derrick Van Orden: 24.7%

Let’s look at a couple of these.

Begich in AK-AL — Cook has his district as “likely Republican”. Me thinks not. Alaska is a weird place with weird politics. Begich comes from a family of Democrats that included a Representative, US Senator and Minority Leader of the Alaska Senate. Begich is a first-termer who beat Mary Peltola by 51-49 . He’s vulnerable, in part because he’s a X shitposter who becomes a wee smol bean who can’t do anything when he’s confronted with his constituents. That is not a winning strategy for a guy with 38% of his constituents on Medicaid in a state that is the #1 recipient of government funds per capita.

David Valadao, CA-22, is in a D+5 district that put the car in the ditch for Trump 52/46 after voting for Biden 55/42 in 2020. We’ve got some voters who like to grab the wheel and crank it in the other direction in this Central Valley district. Valadao voted to impeach Trump for J6 and was re-elected even though his district swung the other way. With a whopping 64% of district residents on Medicaid, this guy is going to feel that his electoral future has one foot on a banana peel and one foot in the grave if he votes to kill off Medicaid.

Monica De La Cruz, TX-15 is the first Republican to represent her very oddly drawn district. Part of the district is in the vexatious Rio Grande Valley, where Dems believe they should be winning with the Hispanic voters there, but seem to either lose squeakers or win by a whisker. Though Texas is a god damn frustrating place politically, Rep De La Cruz is looking at 40% of her constituents on Medicaid, and she’s got to want to think twice if she can win a R+1 district which Cook calls “likely Republican,” which I think is an early ranking based on Cook’s read of Texas.

The toss-ups, according to Cook, are: AZ-1 Schweikert, AZ-6 Ciscomani, CO-8 Evans, IA-1 Miller-Meeks, MI-7 Barrett, NE-2 Bacon, PA-7 MacKenzie and PA-10 Perry.

Evans represents a district right up the road from me. It is truly a pure toss-up, with a PVI of EVEN. He’s a first-termer, and with a quarter of the population on Medicaid, he’s going to have a hard time living down a vote to cut it back.

Similarly, Don Bacon’s EVEN district has already had Bernie visit to shit all over Trump/Musk. And it’s no coincidence that Bernie’s next stop was Iowa City at Marianne Miller-Meeks’ R+3 district. That’s shots fired from one of the most credible Democrats on healthcare.

This is not the makings of a reliable voting bloc for Pastor Johnson when he puts his Medicaid cutting turd of a bill on the floor. This is especially true because the public is pretty ignorant of the role of Medicaid in keeping Grandma in the nursing home.