ICYMI: CLF President Dan Conston Shares His Take on the Dogfight for the House Majority

CLF President Dan Conston sat down with Washington Reporter to discuss the dogfight for the House majority, including where Republicans key advantages and greatest challenges lie, the reality of a tight battleground map, standout Republican candidates and incumbents, and CLF’s strategy in the final stretch of the 2024 election. Here are some highlights from the conversation:

Conston on key Republican advantages: “I think the best asset we had all cycle was that the people in the toughest districts, in these Biden districts, are impressive, meritorious, rising stars in the Republican Party. That is plainly evident to voters and donors alike. People want to invest in them.”

Conston on the House map: “Everyone talks about how our map is tight, and our map is very tight. We hold all sorts of seats that Biden won by double digits, or pretty close to that. On the other hand, where Democrats are ‘expanding’ the map, they’re expanding it into seats that Trump barely won, or won by a couple points, and they’re acting like it’s going into South Dakota. Their ability to play in our territory is much more limited than our ability to play in their territory. We just hold a lot more seats in their territory, which makes the fight for the House inevitably very close… The one guarantee is it’ll be a small majority or minority, either way.”

Conston on CLF’s strategy in 2024: “In terms of how we have continued to modernize, it’s a few things. One, the eye test. People can see the quality of your advertising…. Two, we’ve modernized our buying every cycle. We are spending record amounts on streaming, including screen-agnostic buys. We’ve also invested immensely in data. The other program that we really don’t talk about very much, that we’re proud of, and we think makes a big difference, is what we call our digital IE fundraising program, where we invest small dollars to promote candidates to small dollar Republican donors around the country…”

Conston on what’s at stake in November: “Whether it’s the donor class, the voter class, or the pundit class, everyone gets that the difference of having a House majority or minority has profound implications for what the next two years look like. Unfortunately our politics has way too many consequences at this point, and everyone is looking around and saying, ‘you know what, I’ve got to do my part to save the country.’”

Conston on some of the GOP’s standout recruits: “There’s quite a few good candidates. Look at Derrick Anderson, Alison Esposito, Austin Theriault, Gabe Evans in Colorado, Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina, Rob Bresnahan, Ryan Mackenzie, and Tom Barrett. We have a really solid recruiting class top to bottom…”

Read the full interview from the Washington Reporter here.