It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy.

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Photo by Ron Adar/SOPA Images/Sipa USA

It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy. We think of it as a mini-magazine in your inbox.

HOW DEMOCRATS COULD TAKE THE HOUSE
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews ([link removed])
Correspondent

For a moment, let’s set aside the race for the White House.

We have another historic close match in the battle for the House of Representatives. The chamber is the nation’s largest representative body ([link removed].) — with 435 members.

At the moment, Republicans have a slim majority in the House. Whether they keep it or Democrats can win it back comes down to a few dozen races.

As part of our series mapping out the 2024 election, let’s take a closer look at the battle for control of the chamber.

The basics
* This Congress, Republicans have a 221-214 majority. (That counts current vacancies.)
* When you add in the effect of new maps, Democrats need to gain five seats to win control of the House.
* That is not a huge number and Democrats have a few paths to achieving it.

The map shifts

Democrats start with a one-seat disadvantage created by new maps.

Republican gains. North Carolina gained a House seat ([link removed]) due to population changes. After several map proposals and court rounds, the boundaries that have stuck are a big political gain for the GOP. ([link removed]) Both parties expect Republicans to pick up at least three Democratic House seats due to the new maps.

Democrats have map gains as well. They expect to pick up two seats thanks to court battles over maps in Alabama and Louisiana.

Overall, 21 Republican seats are competitive, with 15 of them being toss-ups or already favoring Democrats. Let’s take a closer look.

Democratic opportunity on home turf

They may have lost some ground from the maps, but Democrats like a different piece of the location puzzle: Eight vulnerable Republicans are in districts in the deep blue states New York and California.
* Which races are vulnerable? The eight Republicans are Reps. John Duarte, David Valadao, Mike Garcia, Ken Calvert and Michelle Steel in California and Reps. Brandon Williams, Anthony D’Esposito and Marc Molinaro in New York. Per the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, all eight are either toss-up races ([link removed]) or, in the case of Williams in New York, a race that Democrats already are favored to win.

* A ninth Republican. New York Rep. Mike Lawler is also vulnerable but has moved out of the “toss-up” category into the somewhat safer “lean Republican” status. (You can see our story on that race here. ([link removed]) )

Biden won in all but one of these districts (that’s Calvert’s in California, where Trump won by a point in 2020). That gives Democrats hope that a clear Harris win and rejection of Trump in New York and California could help with the down-ballot shifts they need for the House.

But New York and California are not the only Democratic opportunities.

Other pick-up chances

Let’s move to three races in the middle of the country.

Two Iowa Republicans are intensely fighting to keep their jobs. Those are Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn. Miller-Meeks won the seat in 2020 with one of the slimmest margins in modern history ([link removed]) — six votes. Nunn survived in 2022 by less than a point. ([link removed])

Iowa has just four congressional seats and less expensive media markets, so the state is being hammered by ads in both races.

Another race to watch: Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District. Republican Rep. Don Bacon is a moderate who’s well-liked on Capitol Hill. (His trademark phrase is, “Who doesn’t like Bacon?”) But his Omaha district voted for Biden by six points in 2020. Nebraska separates its electoral votes by congressional district and Bacon’s district is a single electoral vote that Democrats are determined to keep.

This district could end up determining the presidential race. Currently, Harris seems to have a wide lead in “blue dot” Omaha, ([link removed]) which is a large problem for Bacon.

There are also four more Republicans in toss-up races: two in Arizona, one in Pennsylvania and one in Oregon. Another five Republicans are in that “lean Republican” category that Democrats see as gettable.

These races are tough to predict, full of district-specific dynamics and issues. Some have more national spending than others. Some simply have better campaigns than others.

That said, Republicans have pick-up chances too.

Where Democrats are vulnerable

Democrats have fewer races in the toss-up category: 11, compared with 15 for Republicans. But those are still 11 races that Democrats could lose.

Those toss-ups are across the map: Reps. Mary Peltola in Alaska, Yadira Caraveo in Colorado, Jared Golden in Maine (running against a former NASCAR driver ([link removed]) ), Don Davis in North Carolina, Gabe Vasquez in New Mexico, Susan Wild and Matt Cartwright in Pennsylvania, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in Washington state. And there are two toss-up open seats in Michigan, as well as one in Virginia.

As with the Republican seats, these Democratic front-liners are experiencing a host of different dynamics.

Peltola in Alaska and Golden in Maine both may benefit from ranked-choice voting. ([link removed])

But in Virginia, where Rep. Abigail Spanberger has left her seat open to run for governor, Democrat Eugene Vindman is seeing his numbers go the wrong way. Vindman, the twin brother of Trump whistleblower Alexander Vindman, also had a small role in the first Trump impeachment. He initially ran on those credentials but the district has been unimpressed and now he rarely mentions it. ([link removed])

What will happen?

This is all very close. It seems certain that both Democrats and Republicans will lose some of their current seats.

The ratio will determine everything.

Were the starting point even — meaning if the two parties started at a tie — Democrats would be highly favored to win back control. But starting down by five seats, including the map changes, makes it a much closer battle.

Democrats in general feel better about their chances than Republicans. But this is still anyone’s game.

And a small shift in presidential momentum could have a big effect down the ballot for control of the House.

One more note: Thanks to slow counting in California ([link removed]) , we are unlikely to know the fate of the chamber on election night. So be ready to settle in on this one.
More on politics from our coverage:
* Watch: Trump faces major backlash ([link removed]) for New York rally rife with racist and sexist rhetoric.
* One Big Question: How does Trump’s compare to fascist rhetoric of the past? A history expert explains. ([link removed])
* A Closer Look: U.S. cybersecurity officials warn of foreign efforts to sow doubt and chaos ([link removed]) around the election.
* Perspectives: What are Harris and Trump’s closing messages to voters? NPR’s Tamara Keith and Jasmine Wright of NOTUS discuss. ([link removed])

ALL EYES ON NATIVE VOTERS
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Watch the video in the player above.
By Pauly Denetclaw
Political Correspondent, ICT

We’ve seen how the Native vote can swing elections. Voters in the Navajo Nation helped President Joe Biden secure his 2020 win ([link removed]) in Arizona. Indigenous voters were also key in recent state-level races in Montana ([link removed]) and Alaska. ([link removed])

In 2024, both Harris and Trump are courting Native voters, particularly in Arizona but also in other states they need to win the White House.

As ICT’s political correspondent, I’ve spent time talking to voters across the country about the election — here are some of the issues they say matter most.
* Tribal sovereignty. Having a president and elected officials who understand the nation-to-nation relationship with the federal government and tribal nations.
* Support for economic development within tribal nations.
* Infrastructure. Continuing to build out broadband access, roads and water systems.
* Climate change and the environment. Protecting sacred sites, oil and gas leases and the effect of climate change on Indigenous nations ([link removed]) , which are disproportionately affected by climate change and whose cultural ceremonies often rely on the weather.

On election night, here are three things I’m watching:
* The Native vote could be influential in seven states. They are Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
* Watch what happens in the House. There are nine Indigenous people ([link removed]) who are running for seats in the House of Representatives. Four are incumbents.
* A possible boost in Native representation. A historic ([link removed]) 200-plus Indigenous candidates are running for office this election. (ICT made this spreadsheet ([link removed]) with the Advanced Native Political Leadership group to keep track of these state and local races.) We’ll see how many get elected.

ICT will be following the election results as they come in. Sign up for our weekly newsletter ([link removed]) , which will include coverage after November’s election and feature stories from Indian Country.
More on the 2024 race from ICT:
* Read: How November’s election could boost Native representation ([link removed]) in Washington state.
* After the Apology: How Biden’s historic boarding school apology landed with Native communities ([link removed]) , who want to see action after a long-awaited admission of U.S. wrongdoing.
* Voting in OK: Tribal leaders on why Natives in Oklahoma must vote ([link removed]) in November.
* Rights Denied: Why felony disenfranchisement ([link removed]) of Indigenous people is an important issue.

WHY FEAR IS AN EFFECTIVE TOOL IN POLITICS
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Watch the video in the player above.
By Tim McPhillips, @timmcphillips3 ([link removed])
Video Producer

One hallmark of modern American presidential races are the big emotions baked into campaigns’ messaging, especially in the final weeks of a race. This is why television ads, for example, can sound like trailers ([link removed]) for a horror film. ([link removed])

There is a reason why campaigns use this type of messaging: It’s effective.

But why? There are four emotions that really matter in politics: enthusiasm, hope, anger — and fear. ([link removed])

Fear may be the most powerful one, said Drew Weston, a psychology and psychiatry professor at Emory University who runs Westen Strategies, a political messaging firm.

“It's the one that when we and other animals and other primates were evolving over millions of years, the first thing that they needed to do when they were out foraging or they were taking care of their kids was to pay attention to cues that there might be a predator, that there might be something dangerous nearby,” Weston said.

Experts explain to PBS News ([link removed]) why fear is an effective tool in politics and how it creates fertile ground for candidates’ campaigns to bend the truth.
#POLITICSTRIVIA
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Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images
By Joshua Barajas, @Josh_Barrage ([link removed])
Senior Editor, Digital

Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally over the weekend was chock full of racist, sexist, and vulgar remarks, amounting to a “purely authoritarian spectacle,” ([link removed]) as one expert described it to PBS News.

Trump has long used fear to motivate his base ([link removed]) , predicting in his speeches that World War III was imminent ([link removed]) and he could prevent it if he regained the Oval Office, among other alarmist tidbits.

For a decade now, sociologists at Chapman University have surveyed U.S. adults on their prevailing fears. Every year, in time for Halloween, they release a ranked list of terrors in order of prevalence, from sharks and needles to much larger topics like climate change and nuclear war.

Our question: What was the No. 1 thing that Americans feared most this year?

Send your answers to [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.

Last week, we asked: Which U.S. president once worked briefly as a chicken plucker?

The answer: Richard Nixon. Before he became “Tricky Dick,” a young Nixon found jobs as a janitor, carnival barker ([link removed]) and chicken plucker ([link removed]) .

Congratulations to our winners: Jim Brydon and Benton Elliott!

Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.
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