While huge shifts aren’t possible, small shifts decide control of the House – the Republicans’ ground game is getting stronger by the day

There’s a sense right now at this convention that Republicans are very united and that Donald Trump is at the peak of his influence, at least within the Republican Party. What’s the strategy to expand the House map? Well, the map is small. Because of redistricting, both parties have gotten really good at drawing very safe seats for themselves. And so if you look at 435 House seats, only 35 seats were won with 5 percent or less. Every one of them is going to come right down to the wire. And because there’s so few, there’s gonna be a lot of money spent on each one. It’s not going to be spread as wide. But now, things are looking better for us. The polling looks really good. And so we’re taking a look at what’s that next tranche of districts. We’ve laid down our spending. We’ve kind of put our marker out there of the races we’re going to play.

What’s the next tranche of districts that might come into play? Well, you know, we’ll see. We’re going to do some polling and see kind of where — What states? What districts? I don’t know if I want to — Ah, throw a couple out. I don’t know if I want to lift the skirt completely, but I would just say… What region? Let’s start with the region. If you’re Biden plus 10, plus 11, plus 12, we think we can win those seats now. So there’ll be some pretty deep Biden districts where the key for me all along has been candidate quality. So we went out and recruited the best group of candidates we’ve ever had. There’s a lot of places where you’ve got really tough seats, but I’ve got a really compelling candidate. I’ll throw one out for you: Josh Harder’s seat in California. We’ve got Kevin Lincoln. Kevin Lincoln is a half-Hispanic, half-African American Marine. Beautiful young family. He’s the Republican mayor of a Democrat city, Stockton, which dominates that district. He’s a fantastic candidate for us. Listen to this episode of Playbook Deep Dive on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You guys seem to be more pleased with the way that Donald Trump has inserted himself into some of these primaries than in previous cycles. And you know him pretty well. Can you tell us a little bit about how you help him insert himself into the endorsement process?

Well, President Trump has been a great partner for us in the House. And early on, he asked me to come in and brief him on the races and what was on the map. I’ve briefed people a lot before and know your window of opportunity. You know, maybe you get through 5 or 6 slides, but they’d send us a list of things they wanted to see and I have like a hundred slides. I thought, “Well, I’ll get through the first 7 or 8, right?” Well, we spent an hour and a half going through, race by race by race, and his knowledge and interest level in these races. I mean, he would say, “Oh yeah, I remember in 2020, this other person ran this seat” and he would remember how that race played out. His depth of knowledge shocked me. He’s very interested in the House. He understands that to be successful as president in his next term, he’s got to have a Republican House majority and he’s been very engaged. He makes up his own mind about these endorsements. You can’t tell him to do anything. But he seems like he listens to you and Mike Johnson. Well, I think he trusts my judgment. We sort of lay the scenarios out for him and he decides what he’s going to do. But he has been extremely helpful. You had another meeting this year just a few weeks ago in Mar-A-Lago with you and the speaker and the president. Tell us about that meeting. Well, again, I don’t want to get into details of what we talked about, but it was another meeting where we were sort of updating him on our races and he had some input and advice for us. He’s always fun to be around. He’s a good guy. Do you want to tell us anything about that meeting? It sounds like you had a story on the tip of your tongue. He’s a changed man. He’s not going to be mad at you if you tell one story. No. I enjoy my time with him. And I wish America could see the man I get to see. He’s a warm, funny guy who loves this country, and he could be doing anything else right now. And he’s serving this country. He’s put himself in the arena. He’s taking the slings and arrows from the critics. I have a lot of respect for the man. Some of your vulnerable candidates, there are things that they want Donald Trump to talk about — like the list of issues you just discussed — and other things that they don’t necessarily want him to talk about. When you have conversations with him, do you sort of go through that strategy of what’s helpful from him and what’s not? Not really. Nothing comes to mind when you say that. I think he was a very successful president in his first term. His policies were very popular. Even with people that didn’t like him personally, they like his policies and that’s kind of what he’s running on again. He’s going to turn out the vote.

I know from some of your House members, they don’t think talking about whether the 2020 election was stolen or not is a good issue for them in some of these districts, right? Do you have a relationship with him where you can sort of walk him through what’s helpful and what’s not: sticking to inflation, immigration, not talking about necessarily election denialism or impeachment or defunding the special counsel? I don’t think he needs to hear that from me. I think he’s been very disciplined. In the rallies I’ve seen him, he’s talking about the issues people care about. And, he’s running a very disciplined campaign this time around. I think he said in a recent interview that he’s learned a lot, having already had four years in the White House. He knows the players better. He knows the processes better. I think he will be a much more effective president. In the last quarter, the Democrats did very well in terms of fundraising vis-a-vis some of your vulnerable Republicans. I think Sen. Thune conceded that on the Senate side, they were moderately concerned about fundraising. How about on the House side? Well, the Democrats traditionally always raise more money than our team does. They’ve got structural advantages. Coming into this job, that’s one of my concerns. And we worked really hard at fundraising. And, we’ve had a couple of hiccups — Speaker McCarthy being vacated. He was the most effective fundraiser we’ve ever had. That really made a difference? It made a big difference. Our online and our mail fell off a cliff during the several weeks trying to figure out who the next speaker was going to be. But Speaker Johnson, the first day as speaker, was our best online fundraising day ever. He immediately hit the road. He’s raised over $50 million, I think, for the committee and our super PAC has done really well since he got on board.

Let’s talk about Speaker Johnson. Do you think he’ll be the speaker after the election? I do. I think we’ll pick up a number of seats. What if you don’t keep the House? We’re going to keep the House. It’s just a question of, how many seats can we pick up? And I think we’ll pick up enough that he’ll be rewarded with another term of speaker. Are you supporting him as speaker no matter what? Yes, absolutely. What do you think your margin will be after the election? I’m not going to say a number, but I just remind you, there’s a very narrow number of swing seats. We’re not going to have these huge, sweeping majorities we’ve seen in recent history. I think we’ll have a good number of pickups. Do you think about what happens two years out from this election and if Donald Trump is president and the sort of normal backlash against an incumbent president and the party that holds the House often loses? I haven’t even thought about Nov. 6. I am so focused on the job in front of us. I would say if we go in and do what we said we’re going to do, and we really do bring this economy back, drive down inflation, make neighborhoods safer, secure the border, shut off the fentanyl flow into the country, I think the American people are going to reward Republicans in two years.

Talking about 2024 again. In 2022, there was a lot of talk about a red wave. Is there going to be a red wave in 2024? I don’t think waves are possible anymore. I think the number of seats up for grabs, there’s just not enough. And so, I think you’re going to see Republicans win the White House, the Senate, the House all the way down the ballot because I think Joe Biden’s policies have failed America and the voters understand it. And I think they’re going to give us a large victory. Is impeaching Joe Biden still a top priority for House Republicans? Well, my priority is beating a bunch of Democrat House members. I’m not on either committee that’s the panel on that process. So I’ll let them handle it and we’ll get the report and I’ll read it and decide what to do then. But your candidates in California and New York, they don’t see impeachment as a priority, do they? You have to ask them. If you’re trying to help them, do you want an impeachment vote on Joe Biden between now and Election Day? Everything is going our way right now. The American people understand that Joe Biden’s policies have failed them. We’re all for an alternative that they seem to like. I don’t necessarily want to change those factors right now. If the Judiciary Committee comes back with a report that shows he’s committed crimes that rise to that level, then we have a duty to do it. But we’ll see.