02 March 2021
House Republicans will reclaim their majority in 2022 by offering candidates who are women, minorities or veterans, a memo obtained by Axios says.
Why it matters: The document, drafted by a super PAC blessed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, names top Democrats to target — Jared Golden of Maine, Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania and Ron Kind of Wisconsin — and the type of Republican candidates to beat them.
- The Congressional Leadership Fund spent $140 million during the 2020 cycle, helping Republicans defy the odds and come within five seats of winning the House. The group now plans to play a key role in shaping the 2022 contests.
The details: The memo, written by CLF President Dan Conston, singled out Golden, Cartwright and Kind because they live in Trump-friendly rural and working-class districts.
- Conston recommends "star Navy SEAL" Derrick Van Orden seek a rematch with Kind but says the GOP needs to find new, "stronger recruits" to take on Golden and Cartwright.
The memo is blunt about candidate recruitment.
- "In 2020, all 15 of the seats Republicans flipped were won by a woman, a minority or a veteran," Conston writes. "Continuing to recruit similar candidates is a foundational building block to the majority in 2022."
Between the lines: House Republican candidates performed substantially better than former President Donald Trump did in suburban districts. However, Conston says the suburbs don't need to be the GOP killing fields they were under Trump.
- Republicans will benefit in 2022 from "Democrats' overreach" on policies such as lengthy school closures, curtailment of fracking and pipeline cancellations, he writes.
The big picture: The memo sounds the alarm about insufficient Republican candidate fundraising, calling it the "single biggest threat to Republicans taking back the majority."
- In competitive races, Democrats out-raised half of all Republican incumbents and all but three Republican challengers were out-raised, the memo states.
- During the final stretch, Democratic candidates spent $88 million more on television than Republicans.
- CLF has deep pockets, but super PACs pay far higher TV ad rates than campaigns. Conston emphasized that candidates will need to "stand on their own two feet" and boost their own digital fundraising, to get CLF support.
Be smart: Conston predicts redistricting will bring on "painful member-vs.-member primaries," but he expects redistricting to ultimately help Republicans pick up seats in Texas, Florida, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Montana.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.