How the House majority could be decided in the West

The “People’s House” is searching for its majority out West.
While home to just a quarter of the country’s population, the West is host to more than half of the toss-up seats for U.S. House this year.
Most of these coin-toss districts — spanning the coast from southern California, to Cochise County, Arizona, to the entirety of Alaska — are considered toss-ups because in 2022 they tossed out their preference from the 2020 presidential election.
Of the 24 seats considered up-for-grabs by The Cook Political Report, two-thirds are crossover districts, including nine in the West, where voters elected a Republican in 2022 after picking President Joe Biden in 2020, or voted for former President Donald Trump and opted for a Democrat two years later.
With the race to a 218-seat majority in the House “effectively a 50-50 proposition,” the success of the West’s Biden-district Republicans and Trump-district Democrats will tip the balance of power in Congress’ lower chamber.
Two of the most surprising upsets from the 2022 congressional midterms — and most closely watched races in the 2024 cycle — belong to two of the most moderate Democrats in the country.
Since entering office last year, Rep. Mary Sattler Peltola, of Alaska’s single at-large district, and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, of Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, have bucked pressure from their party in an effort to shore up support among their constituents.
With the endorsement of the National Rifle Association and a campaign slogan of “Fish, Family, Freedom,” Peltola has repeatedly opposed the Biden administration on immigration and energy policy, including by criticizing his proposals to tax carbon emissions and ban fracking.
Peltola, a former state legislator, was pivotal in Biden’s approval of the massive Willow oil drilling project in Alaska, according to Jim Lottsfeldt, the president of Alaska-based consulting firm, Lottsfeldt Strategies LLC, who works with Democrats and other left-of-center politicians. “Probably the most ideologically relevant marker that she has laid is she’s pro-oil industry,” Lottsfeldt said.
Alaska Republicans have criticized Peltola’s 2022 victory as the result of a new ranked choice voting system that split the GOP vote between former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and tech investor Nick Begich III. The 2024 general election will see a rematch between Peltola and Begich, who has focused his campaign on bringing down inflation and supporting Trump’s America First agenda.
While Trump won Alaska by 10 percentage points in 2020, Lottsfeldt said Alaska has always valued politicians who aren’t afraid of big-government spending projects, like the Inflation Reduction Act which Peltola voted for, because the state relies heavily on government jobs.
The most important distinction between Peltola and her opponent, according to Lottsfeldt, is that instead of trying to tie herself to her party’s standard bearer, Peltola has struck a unique blend of values that don’t fit within national talking points: “conservative when it comes to the oil industry and the economy; progressive on women’s rights.”
Gluesenkamp Perez, a former auto shop owner, has promoted a similar ideological mix during her time in office, supporting abortion access but also joining her Republican colleagues on numerous occasions with votes to amp up border security and rein in government spending. Gluesenkamp Perez, the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, has voted in favor of GOP legislation to restrict immigration and require proof of citizenship in federal elections.
In 2024, Gluesenkamp Perez co-sponsored a budget reform bill with Utah Republican Rep. Blake Moore, as well as a water quality bill with Utah Republican Rep. John Curtis. She was also one of the first Democrats to publicly say she thought Biden would lose to Trump, and — like Peltola— she has refused to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris.
Together, Peltola and Gluesenkamp Perez chair the Blue Dog Coalition, a centrist caucus for Democrats that prioritizes “financial stability and national security.” And together, they rank near the very bottom among Democrats on the Progressive Punch “progressive score,” earning an “F grade” from the left leaning nonprofit.
Gluesenkamp Perez is also running a repeat of her 2022 race. She faces Joe Kent, a former Green Beret, who like Begich, has attempted to align himself with Trump’s brand of conservatism in a district where Trump won by 4% in 2020.
Similar to GOP congressional candidates across the country, Kent has focused his messaging on “fighting to secure the border and ending the out-of-control inflation.” But whereas Gluesenkamp Perez has made obvious overtures to win Republican support, Kent has done little to appeal to swing voters, according to Dean Nielsen, a founding partner of the Washington-based Democratic consulting firm CN4.
“What’s happened is that Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has successfully moderated herself on a number of issues. And Joe Kent hasn’t. He just keeps doubling down,” Nielsen said.
Justin Matheson, the Northwest director for Axiom Strategies, a Republican political consulting firm, agrees that Peltola and Gluesenkamp Perez’ pragmatic focus on the economy and national security, combined with a liberal stance on social issues, is a strong combination in Alaska and Washington.
But candidate messaging will almost certainly be overshadowed by the structural differences between midterm and presidential-year elections. “All of the Northwest races are a function of turnout,” Matheson said.
In Alaska and Washington, the demographic that increases turnout the most in general elections is independents who tend to lean toward Trump on key kitchen-table issues related to the economy, according to Matheson. These dynamics make Begich’s and Kent’s races theirs to lose, he said.
But this pattern could be reversed in the dozen toss-up GOP seats that Biden won in 2020. Although Republicans were disappointed by the absence of a “red wave” in 2022, the wave did materialize in California and New York, where several Republicans won in districts that Biden carried by more than 10 percentage points two years before.
Many of these candidates, including Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., have modeled a more moderate approach to spending and border issues. During his brief tenure, Lawler has been one of the most bipartisan lawmakers in the House and a frequent critic of his conference’s budget fights.
But the national trend is clear. Crossover members of Congress, like Lawler, Peltola and Gluesenkamp Perez, are on their way toward extinction. The number of candidates who won a district that voted for the presidential candidate of the opposing party fell from 86 in 2000 to 16 in 2020.
In an era of negative polarization, the outcomes of elections appear to have less to do with distinctions between candidates and much more to do with the name, and party ID, at the top of the ticket, Matheson said. “It’s mechanics.”