With less than two months until the November general election and congressional primaries wrapping up on Tuesday, several House incumbents in competitive districts are gearing up to defend their seats in what are expected to be the closest races of the 2024 cycle.
Republicans are looking to expand their razor-thin majority this fall, with Democrats hoping to flip the House back to blue. The GOP is defending several tight races in Arizona and New York, while a few House Democrats are hoping to hold on in seats that moved red thanks to redistricting or in states that former President Donald Trump won in 2020.
With Vice President Kamala Harris taking the reins from President Joe Biden, House Democrats are hoping the enthusiasm surrounding her campaign will trickle down to the downballot races. On the other side, Republicans are working tirelessly to tie vulnerable Democrats to Harris’s administrative record with messaging bills and ad campaigns targeting their votes in the House.
Below are the top House races to watch in the 2024 cycle, several of which are 2022 midterm rematches.
New York’s 4th, 17th, 18th and 19th districts
The GOP is defending three competitive seats in New York this fall, with freshman Reps. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), Mike Lawler (R-NY), and Marc Molinaro (R-NY) hoping that their one term in Congress will not be their last. The races also have larger implications for the party, as Republicans hope a series of wins in the Empire State will prove the area is becoming more conservative.
Republicans’ 2022 “red wave” missed the mark in most respects but landed in New York, allowing D’Esposito to flip the state’s 4th Congressional District despite Democrats having a 5-point advantage that year. This cycle, D’Esposito’s seat is considered one of the friendliest to Democrats. He is facing a rematch from Democrat Laura Gillen, whom he beat by over 10,000 votes. An internal poll from McLaughlin & Associates found D’Esposito leading Gillen, 48% to 42%.
In Lawler’s case, he is running for reelection in the 17th District that Biden won by 10 points in 2020. He is facing former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones, who drew ire from progressives after he endorsed Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s (D-NY) primary challenger. The Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC rescinded its endorsement of Jones shortly after.
Molinaro is facing a familiar foe, Josh Riley, whom he bested in the 2022 midterm elections by a slim margin of just 4,500 votes. Like D’Esposito and Lawler, Molinaro has earned a reputation on Capitol Hill for being a more centrist — representing the shifting political sands in his 19th District, which has flipped between Democratic and Republican hands frequently. Riley is backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” program, marking the district as one Democrats believe they have a strong chance of flipping in 2024.
On the Democratic side, Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) is one of the most vulnerable Democrats in New York. Ryan is facing Alison Esposito, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for state lieutenant governor in 2022. The 18th District is a swing district, with Democrats working diligently to retain if they wish to expand their majority and take back the House. Esposito’s campaign has tried to paint Ryan as a radical Democrat, though most of Ryan’s voting record in Congress is that of a centrist.
Arizona’s 1st and 6th districts
Eyes will be on Arizona in the 2024 cycle, especially after the state was at the center of election fraud claims from the 2022 midterm elections and the 2020 election. While the Senate and presidential election are likely to gain the most attention, a few Republicans are defending their seats that are ranked “toss-ups” by the Cook Political Report.
Immigration is a significant issue of the 2024 election, with Republicans leaning heavily on the Biden-Harris administration’s border policies for campaigning to try and attack Democrats for the level of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S.
Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) survived a primary challenge from his right flank and will go on to face Kristen Engel, who lost to Ciscomani in the 2022 midterm elections by just one point. A poll from Change Research in July found Engel leading Ciscomani, 44% to 43%, and the general election matchup for Arizona’s 6th District is likely to be a tight race.
In one of the most competitive House districts in the country, Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) is facing state Rep. Amish Shah in the November general election for Arizona’s 1st District. Last cycle, Schweikert defeated a relatively unknown candidate who received little help from national Democrats. This year, the Democrats’ House Majority PAC has pledged more than $6 million on ads in the district compared to the $4.9 million promised by the GOP’s Congressional Leadership Fund, per the Associated Press.
Alaska’s at-large seat
Alaska is one of two states that use ranked choice voting for federal elections, and incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) will face three opponents in the general election for the Last Frontier State’s sole House seat.
Peltola will face Republicans Nick Begich and Andrew Salisbury and independent John Wayne Howe in the ranked choice election. The congresswoman received the most votes out of 12 candidates who ran in the open primary, followed by Begich and Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom. Dahlstrom, who was backed by Trump and national Republicans, withdrew from the race after she came in third, hoping to consolidate the GOP vote around Begich.
In 2022, Peltola won partially due to ranked choice voting and because of infighting between the Republican candidates. With Republicans hoping to rally behind Begich, it is likely that a victory for Peltola may be slightly harder to secure this time around. The Cook Political Report rates her seat as a “toss-up.”
In a ranked choice voting system, a candidate who gets a majority of most first-choice votes in the initial count wins. If no one does, votes are reallocated as candidates are eliminated. A poll taken from Cygnal from Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 found Peltola with a slight lead over Begich, 46% to 45%.
Peltola is one of a handful of House Democrats who frequently vote outside party lines on key issues, such as immigration and energy development, pushing back on messaging from Republicans that she is “lock in step” with the Biden-Harris administration. She recently voted to condemn Harris for failing in her duties as “border czar.”
California’s 22nd District
Control of the House may come down to six races in California, including the seat of Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) in the 22nd District. He will face former Democratic state lawmaker Rudy Salas in the general election, whom Valadao beat narrowly in the 2022 midterms.
National Democrats have rallied behind Salas, particularly as the district was won by Biden in 2020. Similar to 2022, the race is expected to see an influx of cash, as the four major House PACs, two from each party, are planning to spend $73 million on ads, per Axios.
Valadao’s race is important because he is one of the last 10 House Republicans remaining in Congress who voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6 insurrection. Only two, Valadao and Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA), remain in office after the other eight resigned or were defeated in primary elections.
The California incumbent has remained quiet about the former president, choosing not to attend a closed-door meeting with Trump on Capitol Hill earlier this summer. According to a GOP member present at the meeting, Trump said of Valadao, “I never loved him.” Trump also claimed to have saved Valadao by not endorsing a challenger against him.
Decision Desk HQ has projected Valadao with a 55% chance of winning the general election compared to Salas’s 45%.
Pennsylvania’s 10th District
Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) is one of the few members of the Freedom Caucus facing a competitive election this fall. So far, only one member of the hard-line conservative caucus was ousted this election cycle — Chairman Bob Good (R-VA) lost his primary to John McGuire, the conclusion to a feud between Good and Trump after the incumbent endorsed Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in the GOP presidential primary.
Perry’s race is rated “lean Republican” by the Cook Political Report, while other seats held by GOP incumbents in Pennsylvania are all ranked as “likely Republican” and “solid Republican.” Internal polling from Perry’s Democratic challenger, Janelle Stelson’s campaign, found that she trailed Perry by 2 percentage points, 43% to Perry’s 45%, via Roll Call. A poll commissioned by the DCCC found Stelson leading Perry, 48% to 47%.
The Democrats’ campaign arm has targeted Perry’s seat as one of several the party hopes to flip in the House, hitting the incumbent over his involvement in efforts to stop the certification of the 2020 election in particular. Stelson, for her part, is leading the Pennsylvania Republican in cash on hand, bringing in $1.33 million from April to the end of June compared to Perry’s nearly $625,000.
Maine’s 2nd District
Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) is preparing for a competitive general election this November, where he will face Republican state Rep. and former NASCAR driver Austin Theriault. Theriault held an advantage with the endorsement of former President Donald Trump and in fundraising over his primary challenger, state Rep. Michael Soboleksi.
Golden is a three-term incumbent and one of the most conservative House Democrats. Like Peltola, he voted to condemn Harris for the administration’s border policies, as well as voted for Republicans’ SAVE Act that bars noncitizens from voting in federal elections.
He is one of a few Democrats that have not endorsed Harris for president. He did not commit to voting for Biden, either, and drew ire after he said he was “OK” with Trump winning. Still, Golden has defended his place in the Democratic Party, arguing that if “Mainers want a candidate whose entire campaign is about fealty to one party’s entire platform and its national leaders, Austin Theriault is right there for them.”
Ousting Golden will be a difficult task for Theriault, but having a presidential candidate present on the ticket could favor the Republican candidate. Golden’s 2nd District gave Trump an electoral vote in the last two elections. Republicans have a 6-point advantage in this race, according to the Cook Political Report.
North Carolina’s 1st District
Rep. Don Davis (D-NC) is running for reelection in North Carolina’s most competitive congressional race, becoming the only candidate in the state to break into seven figures for fundraising in the second quarter, per NC Newsline. His challenger is Republican Laurie Buckhout, a retired Army colonel.
Redistricting in North Carolina shifted several seats, including Davis’s, into GOP hands. The current delegation is split evenly between the parties at seven apiece, but a new map approved late last year altered all 14 of the state’s districts, creating 10 that favor Republicans, three that favor Democrats, and one, held by Davis, that is a toss-up.
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Shortly after the new maps were approved, Reps. Jeff Jackson (D-NC), Wiley Nickel (D-NC), and Kathy Manning (D-NC) all announced they would not run for reelection next year. Three Democratic incumbents, Reps. Alma Adams (D-NC), Valerie Foushee (D-NC), and Deborah Ross (D-NC), are expected to win easy reelection.
Like Peltola and Golden, who face challenging contests, Davis joined several Democrats in condemning Harris as “border czar” and voted in favor of the SAVE Act. Decision Desk HQ predicts that Davis has a 76% chance of winning in November over Buckhout’s 24%.
