David Schweikert

Carolyn Bourdeaux was at a thank-you party for her supporters in December when she decided she was running for Congress again in 2020. 

She’d just lost a recount in Georgia’s 7th District to Republican incumbent Rob Woodall — by 419 votes. 

On the heels of their historic midterm success, the House Democratic campaign arm has identified 32 Republican-held seats it’d like to peel off in 2020. 

Democrats netted 40 seats in the chamber last fall by going after the suburbs and areas of diverse and rapid population growth where President Donald Trump has been unpopular. The party is looking to the next tier of these districts to help them make more gains next year. 

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s first digital spending of the 2020 cycle attacks House Republicans for the shutdown.

The DCCC ads, obtained first by Roll Call, will target 25 House Republicans, specifically blaming them for national security workers missing their second paycheck. The static ads begin running Friday and will be geotargeted on Facebook. 

The House Ethics Committee voted unanimously Thursday to expand the scope of their inquiry into Rep. David Schweikert to include allegations that he may have used official resources to benefit his campaign and omitted required information from his annual House financial disclosure statements and Federal Election Commission candidate committee reports.

The committee impaneled an investigative subcommittee in June to examine Schweikert and Oliver Schwab, his chief of staff. Schwab was allegedly been paid by the Arizona Republican’s campaign beyond the limit for outside earned income for senior congressional staffers. Schwab announced his resignation in July, saying he was having surgery and will work as a U.S. Coast Guard-licensed maritime captain.

House Republicans on Wednesday are poised to elect their leadership team for the 116th Congress with little drama. Only the top and bottom slots of their seven elected positions are being contested despite the party losing more than 30 seats and its majority in the midterms.  

At the top, California Rep. Kevin McCarthy is expected to easily defeat Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan for minority leader.

Updated Tuesday, 3:44 p.m. | With the midterms — mostly — behind us, attention has shifted to the intraparty leadership elections on Capitol Hill for the House and Senate. 

Here’s a look at the various positions that members of both parties and chambers will be voting on in the coming weeks. 

After a disappointing midterm performance, House Republicans spent Wednesday gearing up for their leadership elections next week, with candidates promising they’ll spend the next two years helping their party reclaim their lost majority.

“I helped build a majority from a deeper hole than this, and I have what it takes to do it again,” California Rep. Kevin McCarthy said in a letter to colleagues. “That is why I have decided to run for Republican Leader and humbly ask for your support.”

President Donald Trump, rallying in Arizona on behalf of Republican Senate candidate Martha McSally, sought to tie her Democratic opponent Kyrsten Sinema, to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer even though Sinema said she won’t support him.

A vote for Sinema is “dangerous” because “it’s for Schumer, crying Chuck,” Trump told rallygoers Friday night at an airport hangar in Mesa. 

At least six House Republicans combined to spend more than $325,000 in campaign funds in the most recent quarter alone on legal or crisis management fees related to brewing scandals that have wended their way into the court of public opinion — and, in some cases, real courtrooms.

New York Rep. Chris Collins, whom federal authorities indicted on Aug. 8 on 10 counts related to insider trading and securities fraud, shelled out $30,980.25 from his campaign account to the D.C.-based law firm BakerHostetler just three days later.

Retiring Rep. Sam Johnson saluted his fellow former prisoner of war, Sen. John McCain, on the House floor Thursday night.

“John was more than just a colleague in Congress. We were friends, and that friendship was forged in the infamous Hanoi Hilton,” Johnson said. The two shared a cell.