Republicans Start Cutting Bait

Election Day is two weeks from today. Here at The Caucus, we’re covering the races that matter most to deciding who controls Congress, looking at what Democrats will do if they win power, and following the 2028 Democratic primary hopefuls as they campaign for candidates across the country. And we’re already planning our post-November world.

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1. LEADING OFF

Good morning. Fourteen days to go. It's been a long and winding road, but now just two more weeks remain until the final day of the 2026 midterms . 

At this point, the best way to understand how the parties really see their situation isn't to listen to spin — it's to follow the money.

Recently, for example, the Congressional Leadership Fund, the main super PAC for House Republicans, canceled its spending in four House races and moved money into 16 others. But what does that tell you? 

That House Republicans' biggest outside spender is cutting bait on two of its own incumbents — in Iowa and New Jersey, respectively — and is spending that money instead on races where it thinks Republicans still have a chance.

Democrats, meanwhile, are going in the opposite direction.

The Democratic Governors Association says it has put seven-figure sums into governor's races in Alaska and Texas, two states with Republican governors. And according to our new ratings, this isn't starry-eyed optimism from Democrats. This is the smart play. 

Below, you can read about one candidate who benefitted from the Democrats' larger ambitions: Randy Villegas, a progressive school-board trustee running against a GOP incumbent who has lost his seat only once since 2012.

You'll also find a Montana firefighter who parachutes into wildfires and has outraised his Republican opponent in a seat Trump won by 12 points, an emergency room nurse in Wisconsin whose new ad uses skeet shooting to tie his opponent to data centers, and a story about the $137 million that's gone into AI-generated political ads this year alone.

— Elias Isquith

2. OUR LATEST RANKINGS

Every week until Election Day, we go through every race on our board and change any rating that no longer matches how we see it. This week, 12 races moved. Every one of them toward Democrats.

Seven of those moves are Democrats tightening their grip.

Six House seats went from D Advantage, our rating for competitive races that lean Democratic, to Expected D, one step short of Safe. Five are seats Democrats already hold. The sixth is New Jersey's 7th District, where Democrat Rebecca Bennett is challenging Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.

Former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper's Senate race made the same move.

The other five are Republican seats getting harder for the incumbents to hold.

Iowa's 3rd District, held by Republican Rep. Zach Nunn, went from Toss Up to D Advantage. Montana's 1st District, open because Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke is retiring, is now a Toss Up. Seats held by Republican Reps. Mike Turner (OH-10) and Mike Carey (OH-15) moved into our competitive tier, and Republican Rep. Bryan Steil's seat in Wisconsin's 1st District is no longer Safe R.

A better rating isn't a seat won. After this week, 213 House seats are rated Safe, Expected or Advantage for Democrats. It takes 218 to elect a Speaker, and 21 Toss Ups are still out there.

To find out why we rate Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX-28) three tiers better than his district's 2024 results, read the full ratings analysis at The Caucus.

3. A PROGRESSIVE TAKES ON DAVID VALADAO

Randy Villegas wasn't the Democrat his party's House campaign arm wanted in this race.

In the June primary, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) backed his more moderate opponent, California Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains. Villegas finished ahead of her anyway.

Our Russell Payne spoke with Villegas, a Visalia school board trustee, and learned why he’s running on Medicare for All and universal child care against Republican Rep. David Valadao (CA-22), in a seat The Caucus rates a Toss Up.

Valadao is one of the last remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after January 6, and he has lost this seat only once since 2012. He won't be an easy out by any means. But if an open progressive does it, it could have real ramifications for the 2028 primary.

To find out whose advice Villegas thinks Democrats should stop taking, read Russell Payne's full story at The Caucus.

4. MONTANA’S OPEN HOUSE SEAT IS UP FOR GRABS

Montana's 1st District, in the western part of the state, is open because Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke is retiring. This week we moved it from R Advantage to Toss Up.

On paper, it should be a safe GOP seat. In 2024, Trump won it by 12 points. 

But this year, Sam Forstag, a Missoula smokejumper (a firefighter who parachutes into remote wildfires) and union leader, is taking on Aaron Flint, a conservative talk radio host. Forstag has more money on-hand, but outside spending has been against him. Some $3.71 million has been spent against the Democrat in this race, with less than $500,000 being spent for him. 

That spending gap — and how much Democrats can close it — is what I'd keep an eye on over the next two weeks.

To find out why we moved Montana's seat, read the full ratings analysis at The Caucus.

5. AD WATCH: "GREAT SHOT, DAD!"

In Wisconsin's 1st District, Democrat Mitchell Berman, an emergency room nurse making his first run for office, is trying to unseat Republican Rep. Bryan Steil (WI-01), who's going for a fifth term. Berman recently put out a new ad titled, fittingly, "Pull."

In the ad, Berman has all the usual signals of rural authenticity — a truck, unpretentious and practical clothing, and an assertion that, for people like him, and, of course, his ad's intended audience, hunting and fishing aren't a hobby so much as a way of life. 

Once he's established his credibility as a genuine rural Wisconsinite, Berman pivots to attacking Steil, who he claims wants Wisconsin to be "a great place for data centers," before saying that Steil has taken nearly $300,000 from the industry. 

Leaning into what polling says (which is that the public sees corruption as one of the country's top issues), Berman implies that, in return for their donations, the data center companies get "$70 billion in special tax breaks," while voters "get the bill."

It's a punchy ad and it hammers what have become familiar beats for Democrats running in rural districts, especially in the Midwest: establishing cultural affinity, then immediately using opposition to data centers to argue that their Republican opponents are not just corrupt (many voters take political corruption as a given) but corrupt in a way that harms voters.

Steil won by nearly 10 points in 2024. So you'd think he'd be breathing easily. But something might be changing. Until this week, we rated the seat Safe R. We now have it at Expected R. 

To find out which other challengers the DCCC put on its Red to Blue list alongside Berman, read our story at The Caucus.

6. IN THE NEWS

• The Democratic Governors Association says it has spent at least $10 million apiece on governor's races in seven states, from Arizona to Wisconsin, as it pushes to win a majority of governorships for the first time since 2010, Surina Venkat reports (The Caucus).

• Democrats still lead by 8 points in the RealClearPolitics average of generic ballot polls, which ask which party voters want running Congress, and forecaster Logan Phillips tells Russell Payne this year's undecided voters don't lean Republican the way they have in past cycles (The Caucus).

• Republican groups have run AI-generated ads against Democrats from Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff to Kentucky House candidate Zach Dembo, and the Wesleyan Media Project counts $137 million spent on 220 AI-made ads through October 11, mostly by Republicans (Axios).