WASHINGTON After countless dire emails and months of fading bravado, national Democrats in recent days have signaled with their money what they have been loath to acknowledge out loud: They will not win back the House and they will most likely lose additional seats in November.
Since last week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has essentially given up efforts to unseat Republicans in several races, pulling advertising money from a dozen campaigns in Republican-held districts to focus on protecting its embattled incumbents.
Democrats need 17 Republican seats to win back the majority, but of the 25 races still on the campaign committees battlefield, only seven currently belong to Republicans. That means they are playing defense in 18 districts and offense in seven.
This is shaping up to be the quintessential sixth year of a presidents term, and a referendum on this president, said Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign committees Republican counterpart.
In Kansas, the independent candidate Greg Orman, right, is in a tight race with Senator Pat Roberts, left, a Republican.Midterm Calculus: G.O.P. at 72 Percent to Take Senate ControlOCT. 14, 2014
Representative Steve Israel of New York, chairman of the Democratic campaign committee, doggedly refused on Tuesday to admit the basic math that had put control of the House out of reach.
I havent even conceded the Mets arent in the World Series this year, he said.
But campaign committee aides now say they never really expected to win the majority, and had not been able to gain traction because of President Obamas stubbornly low approval ratings, Senate races that have gone poorly for the Democrats in states like Colorado and Iowa, and governors races that went sour (Illinois) or never really developed (California, New York.)
They called the continuing retrenchment a fine-tuning of the battlefield.
I absolutely would not say were in triage mode, Mr. Israel insisted. Theres a difference between triage and making strategic decisions.
No matter what they call it, the moves over the last week have been drastic. The campaign committee has withdrawn from races once seen as the most promising in the country.
The mystery for many Democratic consultants is, Where is all the money? Where did it go? said David Wasserman, a House political analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, who pronounced himself flabbergasted by the committees move. The general feeling had been they had more money than they had winnable races. Now the feeling is they dont have enough money to counter Republican outside group spending. Its a surprise.
