More Democratic House midterm candidates pull into contention

When Democratic House candidate Pat Ryan won a special election this week in a moderate district where the polls had the Republican candidate favored by eight to ten points, it represented a seismic shift in conventional wisdom about the midterms. We’re already seeing expert sites revising their midterm expectations in the direction of the Democrats accordingly.

Now two Democratic House candidates, who were already on our list of highly competitive races to get involved in, are seeing impressive new poll numbers. Democrat Jevin Hodge, who’s running in Arizona’s 1st District, is now tied with Republican opponent. Democrat Kirsten Engel, who’s running in Arizona’s 6th District, is now two points ahead of her Republican opponent.

To be absolutely, clear, these new numbers from from just one poll. You always want to look at the polling averages if you can, and not just any one poll. But lower profile House races don’t always see a lot of polling at this stage of the game, and so sometimes one poll is all you have to go on. Even if this new polling is a few points off in either direction, it still points to these two races being super competitive.

Skeptics will point to the fact that these new numbers come internal Democratic Party polling. But internal polls aren’t necessarily skewed toward their party’s candidate. If anything, internal polling is able to use more detailed voter registration data in order to determine a more accurate representative sample. And in this week’s special election, Pat Ryan’s internal polling ended up being much closer to the final result than any external polling.

It also helps that these two races feature fantastic Democratic candidates. Kirsten Engel has worked as an educator and an environmentalist. Jevin Hodge has worked as a community advocate. And their Republican opponents are, frankly, terrible.

Most importantly, the numbers make clear that Hodge and Engel are in competitive races they can win. So it’s more clear than ever that we should put our time and resources into these kinds of races, because it could be the difference between a one point win and a one point loss. Whether you live in Arizona or not, sign up to donate, volunteer in person or online, and get updates from these two Democratic House candidates: Jevin Hodge • Kirsten Engel