Rod Blum

OPINION — While President Trump complains about the national media, Democrats, Robert S. Mueller’s Russian “witch hunt” and the political establishment, none of those things is why the November House elections are a major headache for the Republican Party. Donald Trump’s biggest problem is Donald Trump.

Trump has turned what could have been a challenging midterm election environment into a potentially disastrous one. Through his tweets and statements, the president continues to make the 2018 midterm elections a referendum on his first two years in office.

Facing a competitive race for re-election, Republican Rep. Rod Blum will host President Donald Trump in Dubuque, Iowa, on Thursday.

Blum announced in a tweet that Trump would visit his hometown for a roundtable.

Rep. Rod Blum, an Iowa Republican waging a tough battle for re-election, has spent more on taxpayer-funded mass mailings to constituents than any other House representative.

Blum spent more than $400,000 in taxpayer money on mass mailings and mass communications to his district from January of 2017 through March 31, according to expense records reviewed by the Associated Press.

Millennial candidates could change the age makeup of Congress, currently one of the oldest ever.

With an average age of 58 in the House and 62 in the Senate, this Congress is the oldest of any in recent history, according to a report by Congressional Research Service.

Iowa Democrats are targeting two Republican congressmen this fall, and they chose two women as their nominees in the 1st and 3rd districts in Tuesday’s primaries. No woman has ever been elected to the House from the Hawkeye State. 

President Donald Trump carried both districts in 2016, but Democrats believe a favorable national environment and strong challengers could make these Republicans vulnerable.

Eight states are hosting primaries Tuesday, but all eyes will be on California — where the threat of Democrats getting shut out of a few top pickup opportunities they hope will help them win back the House looms large.

Several matchups will also be decided in competitive general election contests in Iowa, New Jersey, New Mexico and Montana.

Despite forecasts of a blue tsunami, it’s still not guaranteed that Democrats will win back the House majority. But the playing field of competitive House races is expanding and shifting to almost exclusively Republican territory.

After the latest round of changes, Inside Elections now has 68 Republican seats rated as vulnerable compared to just 10 vulnerable Democratic seats. And there are at least a couple dozen more GOP-held seats that could develop into competitive races in the months ahead.

A liberal outside group is targeting incumbent Republicans for their vote in support of the tax legislation that was passed last year.

Tax March, a liberal group critical of the law, said the ad was part of a six-figure ad campaign.

With the House GOP on defense in a difficult national environment, the 10 most vulnerable incumbents six months out from Election Day are all Republicans.

Republicans have pickup opportunities in November, but this is a ranking of the incumbents most likely to lose, not of seats most likely to flip — so there are no open seats on the list.

Republican candidates will likely not be hindered by the tariff tit for tat between Donald Trump and China that some warn could start a global trade war as long as the U.S. economy remains strong, the president’s new chief economic adviser said Wednesday.

Lawrence Kudlow, a former Reagan aide who started last week, also suggested Trump’s proposed steel and aluminum tariffs could be little more than a move to get China to the negotiating table over its trade practices. And he suggested a U.S. trade deal with Canada and Mexico could be near.