A record number of candidates for the Republican Party filed paperwork to run for seats in the House and Senate in 2019, though the GOP falls short of the record Democrats set before the 2018 midterms, Fox News reports.
Last year, 781 Republicans filed the paperwork required to run for a seat in the House, which Fox notes is the most that the Federal Election Commission has ever recorded in an odd year. In 2017, 593 GOP candidates filed paperwork to run for the House ahead of the 2018 midterms, compared to 937 Democrats who ran that year.
The total number of candidates for House and Senate reached 1,761 in 2019, breaking the previous record of 1,739 set in 2017 due to an influx of Democrats. However, GOP candidates outnumbered Democrats 874 to 842 in 2019.
“It's all about enthusiasm driven by the president, both negative and positive,” Sarah Bryner, research director for the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, told Fox. “[Republicans] also saw the Democrats do it last cycle. So they know that it is possible. They saw some seats picked off that I think shocked the party and the public. They want to get those back."
First-time congressional candidate Marjorie Green, a Republican businesswoman running for a House seat in Georgia, told Fox that she’s “tired of seeing my president attacked every day. I'm tired of seeing our future threatened. I'm tired of seeing my children's future extremely threatened, and it’s time to get off the bench and really step up to the plate.”
She added that progressive congresswomen like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, R-N.Y., are “tyrannical socialist Democrats” and “radical women that will not bend. They do not want to work across the aisle. They only want their policies of the Green New Deal, 'Medicare-for-all' and socialism for America.”
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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