Devin Nunes could be in trouble, and his supposedly safe congressional seat may be at risk due to an issue which has made him famous: the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.
Dan Sena, the executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee used a colorful metaphor to describe what’s going on in the Republican Party this year. “If you see the cook chasing around rats in the kitchen, it doesn’t matter how good your meal is,” Sena said.
Sena is referring to the Republicans trying to focus voters on tax cuts and the economy while there is chaos swirling around Washington and in the Trump Administration. He is like many Democrats who believe that the more attention Trump’s legal problems get the more difficult it is for Republicans to keep voters focusing on the the good economic news.
And it is this economic news which the GOP thinks will keep them in control of Congress after the fall elections.
Polling seems to confirm that Mueller’s Russia investigation and the lawsuits against Trump by three different women are having an effect on the mindset of the electorate. They see tweets and chaos instead of government action dealing with the country’s problems like infrastructure and the cost of healthcare.
Because the president’s approval ratings are low and the liberal voter base is more energized than ever, many think that even comfortably Republican districts are at risk. Which means there might be a realistic chance that Devin Nunes could lose in the fall.
Nunes has been criticized because he has mismanaged the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian meddling that many believe helped Trump get elected in 2016. The district’s leading newspaper, The Fresno Bee, had endorsed Nunes in the past but called him “Trump’s stooge” in January.
Nunes is also notorious because of the famous “Nunes Memo.” No other issue fires up Democrats more than this memo which is an object of scorn and derision.
But there are other issues that many believe also help to make Nunes vulnerable. For example, Nancy Gilmore, a retired engineer in Clovis, CA, said there are people in desperate need of help and Nunes has been unresponsive to their needs. “He’s voted against air quality, EPA regulations, clean drinking water. Very baseline health issues. There’s the whole Russia thing, but what’s most concerning is his complete and utter disregard for this district.”
Still, there is no doubt that Nunes’s work defending Trump from questions about Russian meddling in U.S. elections has made Nunes a vulnerable target in the midterms, even though Trump won his central California district by 10 percentage points.
A local prosecutor running against Nunes, Democrat Andrew Janz, is on track to raise $1 million this quarter after raking in more money online than any Democrat in the country, except for Conor Lamb, who won the recent special election in Pennsylvania in an even more Republican district.
“My opponent is front and center in all of this, and so we really believe that removing this man from office is a national imperative,” Janz told NBC News. “This is the only way to get to the bottom of what happened in 2016 and to make sure that Russia’s involvement in our elections never happens again.”
He added of Nunes, “While he’s in Washington focused on the Russia investigation, the issues back home are forgotten.”
Nunes may be a star in Washington but back home people feel that he has forgotten them — and this may be a harbinger of a defeat for Nunes looming in the fall.
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