Eviction Notice: The GOP House Member Most Likely To Lose This November
With the 2018 midterms only months away, Democrats are in a decent position to take back the House of Representatives from the GOP for the first time since 2010. Democrats’ chances of winning the lower chamber are boosted by the redistricting in Pennsylvania (after the state Supreme Court ruled their congressional districts were unconstitutionally gerrymandered in 2017) and the string of Republican retirements in swing districts. However, Democrats cannot rely solely on open seats and redistricting to get them into the majority—they will have to defeat GOP incumbents to have a chance at flipping the twenty-three seats they need to claim victory in November. While there are several GOP members who find themselves vulnerable this November, Congresswoman Barbara Comstock of Virginia’s 10th Congressional District may be the most vulnerable of them all.
[su_pullquote]A recent poll had Comstock down ten points to her Democratic opponent.[/su_pullquote]Virginia’s 10th district is defined by its largely well-educated, upper-middle class, ethnically diverse population—the type of voters who were turned off to the Republican Party by the rise of Trump. These demographics represent significant promise to Democrats in 2018. The district that Comstock represents is one that Hillary Clinton won by ten points in 2016, that Governor Ralph Northam (D-VA) carried by twelve points in the 2017 gubernatorial election, and that Comstock only won by five points in her last re-election bid. A recent poll from Monmouth University (rated by FiveThirtyEight as one of the nation’s most accurate polling organizations) had Comstock down ten points to her Democratic opponent, state Senator Jennifer Wexton. Multiple political rating agencies—including the Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball—rate Comstock’s race as the only election with an incumbent Republican running that Democrats are favored to win.
In 2016, Comstock won re-election by distancing herself from the Trump campaign. She refused to endorse him, ran on a platform of locally focused issues, and was able to position herself as a moderate voice in the GOP. Since Trump took office, however, Comstock has been less willing to distance herself from the President. According to FiveThirtyEight, she’s voted with President Trump 97% of the time, and while she voted against the House Republican Obamacare repeal, she did vote for the Trump tax bill, which was particularly harmful to her district. A review from the Tax Policy Center found that of the twenty-three congressional districts held by a Republican that Hillary Clinton won in 2016, hers had the second highest number of people using the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction, which was cut in the tax bill.
[su_pullquote align=”right”]While her leap to the right may have helped her win in the primary, it will likely hurt her in the general election.[/su_pullquote]During the 2018 GOP primary, Comstock campaigned on her “A” rating from the NRA, distributed literature describing her as a “conservative”, instead of as a moderate as she’s done in the past, and even got Vice President Mike Pence to do a robocall for her. While her leap to the right may have helped her win in the primary, it will likely hurt her in the general election where Democrats plan to make her NRA support a key issue and will have an easier time tying her to Trump given the Pence endorsement.
Despite Comstock’s rightward shift, she has remained relatively unpopular, even among Republicans in the district, only receiving 62% of the vote (while losing Frederick County, a GOP stronghold) against Shak Hill, an unknown candidate whom she outraised $3.2 million to $245,000. Comstock spent over $1,000,000 in the primary, an usually high amount for an incumbent with a lackluster primary opponent and a difficult general election ahead. However, her weak showing on Election Day showed that her spending may have been necessary to survive the primary.
The way Comstock ran her campaign in the primary highlights two themes about the race in Virginia’s 10th: GOP enthusiasm for Comstock is down, and her rightward lurch will be difficult for her to explain to the centrist voters who carried her into office.
Finally, the issue that separates Comstock from other vulnerable Republicans is the strength of her Democratic challenger. Wexton’s state Senate district covers about 45% of VA-10 and is based in Loudoun County. Previous Comstock opponents have worked in D.C. and moved back to the district to run, thus making them easier to paint as D.C. insiders. Wexton, on the other hand, is well-known and well-liked in Loudoun, which will force Comstock to find a new playbook to attack her opponent.
[su_pullquote align=”right”]Comstock’s chances of being re-elected are slim.[/su_pullquote]Caught in a bind between needing to turn out GOP voters while maintaining her reputation as a moderate, Comstock’s chances of being re-elected are slim, especially compared to other Republicans in tough races. She faces a tougher opponent than usual and will be running in a district Democrats are now consistently winning in other elections, making her the House Republican most at risk of losing this November.
Arik Wolk ‘21 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at arik.wolk@wustl.edu.