Six months ago, few Republican strategists could pick Ryan Frazier, Jeff Perry, Austin Scott or Randy Demmer out of a crowd. Today, that quartet of candidates is part of a small group of challengers who national Republicans think could be the deciding force in whether the party will win back the House majority on Nov. 2.
The four men hail from competitive districts: Frazier is running for a suburban Denver seat and Perry for an open seat that includes Cape Cod, while Scott and Demmer are vying for largely rural districts in Georgia and Minnesota, respectively. But, in a roundtable conversation with the Fix last week, it became clear that they are campaigning largely on the same ideas: against government spending and unified Democratic control of government in Washington and for a fresh start to a Republican Party that had been moribund as recently as two years ago.
“People are also looking for a balance in Congress that is not there today,” said Frazier, an African American city councilman seeking to unseat second-term Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) in a district that went for Barack Obama by 19 percentage points in 2008.
Perry, a protege of Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), argued that the way the health-care bill gained approval in Washington – “a culture of backroom deals” – made voters more willing to consider sending to Congress a Republican from one of the most Democratic states in the country.
Full story: Four candidates could make big difference for GOP in midterms – WaPo