The president has been able to accomplish little since taking office to bolster public opinion of him, but that doesn’t mean that the political process has stopped. Instead, the nation will soon be at the 2018 midterm elections, and it doesn’t look as though Republicans are going to have a good time when those elections roll around.
At present, Democrats lead Republicans in generic Congressional ballot polling by a sizable margin of about 12 percent.
As a part of the Democrats’ plans to take on Republicans come 2018, reports have now emerged pointing out that there are at least a dozen former Obama Administration officials running for Congressional seats around the country.
The Wall Street Journal reports that these officials remain in contact with each other, with many of them running for Republican-held seats that are widely perceived to be competitive.
Those running for a Congressional seat include former White House technology adviser Brian Forde, who is running against Republican U.S. Representative Mimi Walters in California. Also running are former Department of Housing and Urban Development employee Colin Allred and former State Department employee Ed Meier, both of whom are challenging Texas’ U.S. Representative Pete Sessions, who serves as Chairman of the House Rules Committee.
Former acting assistant Secretary of Defense Elissa Slotkin is also challenging U.S. Representative Mike Bishop in Michigan.
Democrats need to — besides holding onto the seats that they already have — pick up 24 House seats come 2018 to become the majority party in the lower legislative body.
Thanks to Doug Jones’ victory in Alabama last December, the Democrats only need to pick up two seats in the Senate to become the majority party, instead of the previous three.
Among the 17 seats rated by the Cook Political Report as “toss-ups” that are currently held by Republicans is U.S. Representative Darrell Issa’s seat out in California. Former State Department official Sarah Jacobs is challenging him.
Back in November of 2016, Trump actually took the time to endorse Issa as he sought to retain his Congressional seat.
Issa supported Trump during the presidential race, but since then he has taken somewhat of what Mother Jones described as a “left turn,” calling for a special prosecutor to look into issues with the 2016 election during a television appearance. He was, according to Mother Jones, the first Congressional Republican to do so.
Even still, Rep. Issa’s so-called “left turn” hasn’t been enough to save his political career.
There has, of course, been an independent investigator appointed to oversee the Russia investigation since Issa’s comments, in the form of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller has brought charges against four of Trump’s former associates at this point, including most recently Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
The Russia scandal is one of the factors that continues to keep the president’s approval rating down in the dumps to say the least, with him having set a record for the lowest approval rating of any modern first year president.
RealClearPolitics’ average of relevant polls currently has Trump’s approval rating at about 39.6 percent.
There are a few former Obama Administration officials already in Congress, such as Ro Khanna, who was a a deputy assistant secretary in the Commerce Department before becoming a U.S. Representative from California.
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