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House Democrats targeting 33 GOP-held and open seats next year

List includes freshmen who ousted incumbents last year

Republican Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Lauren Boebert of Colorado hold two of the 33 seats the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Monday are in play in the 2024 election.
Republican Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Lauren Boebert of Colorado hold two of the 33 seats the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Monday are in play in the 2024 election. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Monday designated 33 districts as “in play” for next year’s elections.

The announcement comes weeks after the group named its “Frontliners,” or most vulnerable incumbents, and its GOP counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee, identified its own 2024 targets.

The DCCC’s target list includes two open seats in California and Michigan, where Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Elissa Slotkin, respectively, are running for Senate. It also includes Republicans who defeated Democratic incumbents in traditional swing districts last year, including GOP Reps. Zach Nunn of Iowa, Thomas H. Kean Jr. of New Jersey, Mike Lawler of New York and Jen Kiggans of Virginia. 

The group is targeting six seats in New York, where Republicans won several open seats last year, in addition to Lawler ousting former DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney. Democrats need a net five seats to win control of the House next year and are eyeing New York as a state where they can anchor that effort. The DCCC is also targeting eight total seats in California. 

The list includes a handful of Republicans who are more aligned with former President Donald Trump, like Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, a far-right firebrand who narrowly won reelection in one of the closest races in the country last year. Her Democratic opponent, Adam Frisch, has already said he is running again.

DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene of Washington said in a statement that the Republicans on the list “have worked hand in hand with Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy to enable the most dangerous wings of their party to threaten our jobs, roll back women’s freedoms, endanger Americans’ economic security, and prioritize politics over people.

“The DCCC is prepared to recruit exciting and battle-ready candidates in these key districts and ensure voters see the clear contrast between Democrats’ track record of delivering for the middle class, and Republicans’ radical agenda that puts Americans’ pocketbooks, communities, and livelihoods at risk,” DelBene said. 

In addition to Boebert, Nunn, Kean, Lawler and Kiggans and Porter’s and Slotkin’s seats, the DCCC’s target list includes the following incumbent Republicans:

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