A surge of Democratic candidates ahead of the 2018 midterms helped the party regain control of the House, but ahead of the 2020 elections, a record number of Republicans have filed for office.
Fox News Friday that last year alone, 781 GOP candidates have filed federal paperwork to run for a House seat, the most ever recorded in an odd year at the Federal Election Commission.
That’s an increase from 593 Republican candidates who filed in 2017 when Democrats saw a massive number of candidates — 937 — file for office.
In interviews with the network, GOP candidates from around the country said they believe the political momentum is with the Republican Party this coming election cycle.
Many GOP candidates and voters, they say, are energized by the Democrat-led impeachment of the president and his subsequent acquittal, and they are telling voters they need fighters like them to help Trump or the country will fall to “socialist” Democrat ideas and policies.
“I’m tired of seeing my president attacked every day,” Marjorie Greene, a GOP businesswoman and first-time congressional candidate running for an open seat in Georgia’s 14th district, told Fox News.
“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 cited “radical women” like Rep. Alexander Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) as motivations to run for Congress.
“These are 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,” Greene told Fox News.
“Oftentimes, it takes a woman to put another woman in her place,” said Greene, whose family owns a commercial construction company.
“It’s all about enthusiasm driven by the president, both negative and positive,” Sarah Bryner, research director at the Center for Responsive Politics, told the network.
“[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.”
The job of retaking the House from Democrats, though, won’t be easy.
In recent weeks, Republican House leaders have that Democrats are out-working and out-fundraising them in many key districts.