NRCC Weekly Rundown: “On the Radar” Candidates, CA-21 Dems Still a Mess, and Charlie Crist Fatigue

November 20, 2015

Here’s your latest NRCC Weekly Rundown:

NRCC Announces First Round of “On the Radar” Candidates for Young Guns Program

This week, the NRCC was excited to announce 32 candidates who made the first level of the committee’s Young Guns program. These candidates are all either challengers or running for open seats. We’ve selected these candidates who “provide a stark contrast to their liberal opponents” and will be given the tools and support to build strong campaigns that will fight to best represent their respective districts.

Below is the list of candidates:

AZ-01 Ken Bennett
AZ-01 Gary Kiehne
CA-03 Eugene Cleek
CA-24 Justin Fareed
CA-24 Katcho Achadjian
CA-52 Denise Gitsham
FL-02 Mary Thomas
FL-02 Neal Dunn
FL-06 Sandy Adams
FL-06 Adam Barringer
FL-18 Rebecca Negron
FL-18 Rick Kozell
FL-18 Noelle Nikpour
FL-18 Brian Mast
FL-18 Carl Domino
IL-11 Tonia Khouri
IN-03 Kip Tom
IN-03 Pam Galloway
IN-03 Jim Banks
IN-09 Erin Houchin
IN-09 Greg Zoeller
MD-06 Amie Hoeber
MI-10 Phil Pavlov
MI-10 Paul Mitchell
MN-08 Stewart Mills
NE-02 Don Bacon
NV-03 Michael Roberson
NV-03 Danny Tarkanian
NV-03 Andy Matthews
NY-03 David Gurfein
NY-19 Andrew Heaney
NY-19 John Faso

Last cycle, the Young Guns Program led to the election of 45 new House Republicans.

CA-21 Democrats Still Desperate for a Top-Tier Candidate

Earlier this month, we shared the latest recruitment failure by CA-21 Democrats when candidate Connie Perez dropped out of the race after less than a month. Two weeks later, as if three botched attempts to woo a candidate weren’t enough for one year, the DCCC managed to suffer yet another embarrassing blow when Bakersfield City School District Trustee Andrae Gonzales turned them down.

The DCCC has desperately trying to find someone—anyone—to run, but it looks like they’re stuck with third-tier candidate Daniel Parra. Less than a year out from Election Day, Democrats have made it clear that they have little confidence in Parra, and Parra should have little confidence they’ll be there for him in his uphill climb against Republican David Valadao, who won by the double digits in 2014.

Pete Gallego Getting Swept Up in “Crazy Bernie Wave”

Pete Gallego already showed he’s willing to be pulled pretty far to the left when he was a loyal foot soldier for Nancy Pelosi’s agenda during his one term in Congress. TX-23 voters let him know they disapproved by giving him the boot last year. Now, in his bid to win the seat back, looks like he’ll have to go even further left in a suddenly contentious Democratic primary.

Earlier this week, local Democratic activist Felipe Vargas announced he will challenge Gallego in the primary. As the San Antonio Express-News put it, Vargas “is [the district’s] Bernie Sanders” and intends to play that role in the race against Gallego. As we’ve seen in the Democratic presidential primary, Hillary Clinton has moved to the left more and more to try to secure the nomination due to socialist Sanders’s rise in the polls. Now, Gallego will have to follow Clinton’s playbook as Vargas taps in to the “crazy Bernie wave.”

Seems like Gallego will once again cater to the far-left of his party this cycle. We saw what happened last time: It didn’t go well for him.

Hang It Up, Charlie Crist

Perennial candidate and flip-flopper Charlie Crist may just have run his course with Floridians. Crist, who has “sought a seat in Washington going all the way back to 1998,” has already thrown his hat in to the ring in FL-13, but it looks like FL-13 is throwing it back at him. His Democratic primary opponent Eric Lynn received another round of local Democratic endorsements this week.

Lynn has received endorsements from local mayors, city council members, county school board members, and county commissioners while Crist is banking on the backing of national Democrats (as you may recall, Crist was in D.C. the day after launching his candidacy). Seems like FL-13 Democrats are trying to send Crist a message, but he may be too blinded by his own ego to see it.

Other News and Notes

New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik chaired a hearing on “The Essential Role of Millennials in Today’s Economy” with witnesses from Uber and Google, among other companies. This was her third hearing as chairwoman of the Republican Policy Committee’s Taskforce on Millennials.
A bill from Illinois Congressman Rodney Davis that would help veterans receive training for jobs passed the House.
Texas Congressman Will Hurd penned an op-ed in the San Antonio Express-News on the dangers of President Obama’s strategy in Syria.
In the aftermath of last week’s Paris attacks, several Republican congressman have made themselves heard on the issue of standing by our ally France and taking action against ISIS, including Arizona’s Martha McSally and New York’s Dan Donovan and John Katko. Additionally, others such as Colorado’s Mike Coffman, Illinois’s Bob Dold, and Michigan’s Mike Bishop, have raised concerns about the Obama administration’s screening process for Syrian refugees and want to ensure that Americans are not put in danger.