Abortion advocates and Democratic U.S. House members march in front of the U.S. Capitol on July 19, 2022. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — A group that focuses on electing Democratic women who support abortion rights announced Wednesday it would target 46 U.S. House seats held by Republicans in the midterm elections as it seeks to turn the chamber from red to blue.
“In 2026, we must take back the majority in the U.S. House to create a federal check on Donald Trump and beat back GOP attacks on our rights and our livelihoods,” EMILYs List President Jessica Mackler wrote in a statement. “Democratic pro-choice women will be at the heart of the fight for the majority by flipping competitive seats across the country. House Republicans beware; we are coming for your seats.”
Democrats, who have been publicly fighting each other lately about how best to oppose Trump’s agenda, barely lost the House during the 2024 elections. Republicans secured 220 seats, compared to Democrats’ 215.
EMILYs List cites several reasons it doesn’t believe the 46 Republicans should stay in office, though all of the issues highlighted have to do with abortion access and reproductive rights.
For example, it notes which of the GOP lawmakers signed a 62-page amicus curiae brief filed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021 that urged the justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion.
The brief description of each Republican also cites which members have sponsored bills that would implement nationwide abortion bans and which GOP lawmakers voted against approving a bill that would have guaranteed people the right to use contraception without government interference.
The GOP House members that EMILYs List hopes to unseat represent congressional districts considered toss-ups, by the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, as well as districts that lean more favorably toward one party or the other.
EMILYs List is one of several left-leaning organizations that will focus their efforts during the next 19 months on securing Democratic wins come November 2026.
History will likely be on Democrats’ side during the midterm elections, since the political party that doesn’t control the White House typically wins control of the House. That, however, is far from a guarantee.
Polling from NBC News, released in mid-March, shows that just 7% of voters have a “very positive” view of the Democratic Party with another 27% responding they have a positive opinion.
Here are the House GOP members on the list, organized by state.
Alaska: Nick Begich
Arizona: David Schweikert and Juan Ciscomani
California: Kevin Kiley, David Valadao, Young Kim and Ken Calvert
Colorado: Jeff Hurd, Jeff Crank and Gabe Evans
Florida: Aaron Bean, Cory Mills, Anna Paulina Luna and Laurel Lee
Iowa: Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Ashley Hinson and Zach Nunn
Kentucky: Andy Barr
Michigan: Bill Huizenga, Tom Barrett and John James
Minnesota: Brad Finstad
Missouri: Ann Wagner
Montana: Ryan Zinke
Nebraska: Mike Flood and Don Bacon
New Jersey: Jeff Van Drew and Tom Kean
New York: Nick LaLota and Mike Lawler
North Carolina: Chuck Edwards
Ohio: Max Miller, Michael Turner and Mike Carey
Pennsylvania: Brian Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mackenzie, Robert Bresnahan and Scott Perry
South Carolina: Nancy Mace and Joe Wilson
Virginia: Rob Wittman, Jen Kiggans and John McGuire
An Eau Claire County farm. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
Seven western Wisconsin Republican lawmakers did not appear at an event hosted by the Wisconsin Farmers Union in Chippewa Falls Friday as farmers from the area said they were concerned about the effect that President Donald Trump’s first month in office is having on their livelihoods.
Madison-area U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth), state Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Eau Claire) and state Reps. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) and Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) were in attendance.
U.S. Reps. Tom Tiffany and Derrick Van Orden, state Reps. Rob Summerfield (R-Bloomer), Treig Pronschinske (R-Mondovi) and Clint Moses (R-Menomonie) and state Sens. Jesse James (R-Thorp) and Rob Stafsholt (R-New Richmond) were all invited but did not attend or send a staff member.
The Wisconsin Farmers Union office in Chippewa Falls. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
“All four of us want you to know that there are people in elected office who want to fight for you,” Phelps said. “Because I think there’s a lot of fear that comes from the fact that we’re seeing a lot of noise and action from the people who aren’t and some of the people that didn’t show up to this. So I hope that you will also ask questions of them when you get a chance.”
Multiple times during the town hall, Pocan joked that Van Orden was “on vacation.”
Emerson, whose district was recently redrawn to include many of the rural areas east of Eau Claire, told the Wisconsin Examiner she had just been at an event held by the Chippewa County Economic Development Corporation where a Van Orden staff member did attend, so she didn’t understand why they couldn’t hear about how Trump’s policies are harming local farmers.
“I get that a member of Congress can’t be at every meeting all the time, all throughout their district,” Emerson said. With 19 counties in the 3rd District, “it’s a big area. But I hope that they’re hearing the stories of farmers and farm-adjacent businesses, even if they weren’t here. There’s something different to sit in this room and look out at all the farmers, and when one person’s talking, seeing the tears in everybody else’s eyes, and it wasn’t just the female farmers that were crying, the big tough guys, and I think that talks about how vulnerable they are right now, how scary it is for some of these folks.”
Carolyn Kaiser, a resident of the nearby town of Wheaton, said she’s never seen her congressional representative, Van Orden, out in the community. Despite Van Orden’s position on the House agriculture committee, Kaiser said her town needs help managing nitrates in the local water supply and financial support to rebuild crumbling rural roads that make it more difficult for farmers to transport their products.
“When people don’t come, it’s unfortunate,” Kaiser said.
Emmet Fisher, who runs a small dairy farm in Hager City, said during the town hall that he was struggling with the freeze that’s been put on federal spending, which affected grants he was set to receive through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Fisher told the Examiner his farm has participated in a USDA program to encourage better conservation practices on farms and that money has been frozen. He was also set to receive a rural energy assistance grant that would help him install solar panels on the farm — money that has also been held up.
The result, he said, is that he’s facing increased uncertainty in an already uncertain business.
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan speaks at a Wisconsin Farmers Union event in Chippewa Falls on Feb. 21. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
“We get all our income from our farm, young family, young kids, a mortgage on the farm, and so, you know, things are kind of tight, and so we try to take advantage of anything that we can,” he said. “[The] uncertainty seems really unnecessary and unfortunate, and it’s very stressful. You know, basically, we have no idea what we should be planning for. The reality is just that in farming already, you can only plan for so much when the weather and ecology and biology matter so much, and now to have all of these other unknowns, it makes planning pretty much impossible.”
A number of crop farmers at the event said the looming threat of Trump imposing tariffs on Canadian imports is alarming because a large majority of potash — a nutrient mix used to fertilize crops — used in the United States comes from Canada. Les Danielson, a cash crop and dairy farmer in Cadott, said the tariffs are set to go into effect during planting season.
“How do you offer a price to a farmer? Is it gonna be $400 a ton, or is it gonna be $500 a ton?” he asked. “I’m not even thinking about the fall. I’m just thinking about the spring and the uncertainty. This isn’t cuts to the federal budget, this is just plain chaos and uncertainty that really benefits no one. And I know it’s kind of cool to think we’re just playing this big game of chicken. Everybody’s gonna blink. But when you’re a co-op, or when you’re a farmer trying to figure out how much you can buy, it’s not fine.”
A recent report by the University of Illinois found that a 25% tariff on Canadian imports — the amount proposed by Trump to go into effect in March — would increase fertilizer costs by $100 per ton for farmers.
Throughout the event, speakers said they were concerned that Trump’s efforts to deport workers who are in the United States without authorization could destroy the local farm labor force, that cuts to programs such as SNAP (commonly known as food stamps) could cause kids to go hungry and prevent farmers from finding markets to sell their products, that cuts to Medicaid could take coverage away from a population of farmers that is aging and relies on government health insurance and that because of all the disruption, an already simmering mental health crisis in Wisconsin’s agricultural community — in rural parts of the state that have seen clinics and hospitals close or consolidate — could come to a boil.
“Rural families, we tend to really need BadgerCare. We need Medicaid. We need those programs, too,” Pam Goodman, a public health nurse and daughter of a farmer, said. “So if you’re talking about the loss of your farming income, that you’re not going to have cash flow, you’re already experiencing significant concerns and issues, and we need the state resources. We need those federal resources. I’ve got families that from young to old, are experiencing significant health issues. We’re not going to be able to go to the hospital. We’re not going to go to the clinic. We already traveled really long distances. We’re talking about the health of all of us, and that is, for me, from my perspective as a nurse, one of my biggest concerns, because it’s all very interrelated.”
Near the end of the event, Phelps said it’s important for farmers in the area to continue sharing how they’re being hurt by Trump’s actions, because that’s how they build political pressure.
“Who benefits from all the chaos and confusion and cuts? Nobody, roughly, but not literally, nobody,” he said. “Because I just want to point out that dividing people and making people confused and uncertain and vulnerable is Donald Trump’s strategy to consolidate his political power.”
“And the people that can withstand the types of cuts that we’re seeing are the people so wealthy that they can withstand them. So they’re in Donald Trump’s orbit, basically,” Phelps said, adding that there are far more people who will be adversely affected by Trump’s policies than there are people who will benefit.
“And you know that we all do have differences with our neighbors, but we also have a lot of similarities with them, and being in that massive group of people that do not benefit from this kind of chaos and confusion is a pretty big similarity,” he continued. “And so hopefully these types of spaces where we’re sharing our stories and hearing from each other will help us build the kind of community that will result in the kind of political power that really does fight back against it.”
Most inmates in Wisconsin’s federal prison, and in federal prisons nationally, are U.S. citizens.
Following Trump administration arrests of immigrants suspected or convicted of crimes, Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden of western Wisconsin claimed Jan. 27 that over 50% of inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Oxford, Wisconsin, are “illegal aliens.”
Oxford is a low-security prison 60 miles north of Madison that houses 1,100 male offenders.
As of Jan. 25, 59% of Oxford inmates, and 85% of federal inmates nationally, were U.S. citizens. The Federal Bureau of Prisons does not readily have data on what percentage of inmates are unauthorized immigrants.
Nationally:
U.S. citizens constituted two-thirds of recently federally sentenced individuals.
The most serious offense for 76% of noncitizens sentenced for a federal crime in recent years was immigration-related, such as unlawful U.S. entry or smuggling noncitizens (14% were drug-related).
Donald Trump’s administration has called unauthorized immigrants criminals, but being undocumented is a civil violation.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
The value of food imported into the U.S. exceeds what is exported.
That’s a recent reversal of a long-term trend, as U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden stated Dec. 2.
But it doesn’t necessarily mean the U.S. is “beholden on other nations,” as the western Wisconsin Republican claimed.
The U.S. was an annual net exporter of agricultural products from at least the 1970s through 2018, but since then has mostly been a net importer, and the gap is widening.
In fiscal 2025, the value of agricultural imports is projected at $215.5 billion and exports $170 billion.
William Ridley, a University of Illinois agricultural and consumer economics professor, said the U.S. produces more food for itself than ever, but it’s a net importer because of demand for imported food, much of it from allies.
Some imports, including out-of-season produce, come from foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies, said Steve Suppan, of the nonprofit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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