In its quest to take control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 2010, the Democratic Party is leaving few seats unchallenged in the upcoming midterm elections, The New York Times reports.
Currently, Democrats hold 194 of 435 seats, short of the 218 they need to regain control of the lower chamber, and need to grab at least 24 seats from the GOP to regain the majority. But the party is looking to make big changes, according to the Times, and has filed to run in all but 20 districts held by Republicans. In 80 districts Democrats have filed in, they do not have a GOP opponent.
They are running in districts where Hillary Clinton fared well, where conservative seats were uncontested in 2016 and where Republicans remain favorites.
But most Democratic challengers will still face an uphill battle, especially as the Republican National Committee has built up $40 million compared with $6 million for the Democrats.
"Incumbents have a lot of built-in advantages," Michael Beckel of the bipartisan campaign finance reform group Issue One told the Times. "They have higher name recognition, and they can spend a lot of time building up a huge campaign war chest to ward off opponents. Additionally, interest groups in Washington are incentivized to bet on incumbents."
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