DCCC Identifies More Endangered Incumbents

By Scott Bland  //  December 30, 2011 | 12:49 p.m.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added five more House members to its Frontline incumbent-protection program Friday.

The new Frontline members are Reps. John Barrow, D-Ga., Lois Capps, D-Calif., John Garamendi, D-Calif., Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, and Betty Sutton, D-Ohio. They join thirteen previously named members in the program. Reps. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., Mark Critz, D-Pa., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., have dropped off the Frontline rolls since then; each of them was drawn into a new congressional district with another Democratic incumbent earlier this year.

Barrow and Loebsack have long been considered vulnerable and each barely won reelection in 2010, while Sutton was drawn into a tough new Ohio district with a Republican incumbent, freshman Rep. Jim Renacci. The addition of Capps and Garamendi to the Frontline program demonstrates that the chaos wrought by California's citizen redistricting commission this year did not fall solely on Republicans.

Capps's old district, an approximately 200-mile ribbon of California coastline, was long held up as an example of the excesses of gerrymandering. Her new 24th District stretches further inland, containing more Republican voters and a strong Republican challenger in former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado. Garamendi, meanwhile, lost Democratic-leaning areas northeast of the San Francisco Bay from his old district and had them replaced by new, Republican-leaning territory north of Sacramento. Based on its recent actions, the National Republican Congressional Committee believes that Garamendi may be vulnerable. It has already run TV advertisements against the Democrat in his new district.

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