During an interview with Mobile, AL radio’s FM Talk 106.5, Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL), the chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, argued that Republicans regaining control of the House of Representatives was not as far-fetched as some political watchers in the media say it is.
According to Palmer, there are more than three times as many Democrat seats that are competitive as Republican seats in the House.
“I think we can regain the House, and I think the President is convinced of that, as well,” he said. “We only need to win 19 seats to regain the majority. And there are 53 Democrat seats we think are competitive. There’s 16 of ours that will be competitive. I think we’ve got a legitimate shot at picking up the majority. That’s what I’m working on every day to make sure that we do.”
Palmer offered listeners the last two special elections for U.S. House seats to back up his claim.
“Of the 53 Democrat seats that we’ve targeted, 30 of them were in districts that Trump won in 2016,” Palmer explained. “I’ll give you an example of a couple of things that have happened already: We had a special election on May 12 in California in a district that Hillary [Clinton] had won by seven points. The Democrat who had resigned won by nine or 10. And honestly, in January, I wouldn’t have given you a dollar for that. I just didn’t think that was a winnable seat. Yet, our guy Mike Garcia had 500 campaign volunteers — people who showed up at one time or another to help his campaign — and he won that by 10 points.”
“And then we had another special election. I think it was June 23 in New York. It was the same day they had their primary, and it was a district that Trump had won handily, but our Republican congressman who had resigned only won by 1,100 votes,” he continued. “Our guy, who was running against the same Democrat that had run against the previous Republican — and The New York Times thought that race would be so close that it could be a harbinger for November — our guy won by 30 points. What we’re seeing is people who either haven’t voted in years or haven’t voted, we’re seeing Democrats who believe the Democratic Party has left them come out and voting for Republicans. I told someone a couple of weeks ago the Democratic Party that you and I grew up with doesn’t exist anymore.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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