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COATESVILLE, Pennsylvania – Chrissy Houlahan cared for a chocolate milkshake at a restaurant while she was traveling to a gun control event and reflected on the changing political nature of this Philadelphia suburb represented in Congress by more than 100 years.
"If you'd said, 10 years ago, here in Chester County, that we had a conversation about it, I would not have believed you," said Congresswoman Democrat Houlahan, representing Chester County.
Nine of the 18 seats in Pennsylvania could change sides this year, a concentration of competitive races like nowhere else in the country, because of court-ordered redistribution and the broader realignment of Republican suburban voters.
Of the 63 seats in the House held by the GOP, Cook's political report is considered a lean Republican, a strong or probably Democratic candidate, 31 from six states. Democrats could hold the table in only four state battlefield districts – Pennsylvania, California, Florida and New Jersey – and capture the 23 seats they need to seize the majority without take the slightest neighborhood.
In 2006, Democrats won a majority in the House successfully in rural seats in places like Indiana and North Carolina. Republicans took control in 2010 by eliminating gains and winning districts held by rural and moderate Democrats. Four seats in Pennsylvania changed sides in 2006 and 2010, making it one of the most politically unstable states in each of the last two elections.
This year, the battlefield is in the suburbs of the country, districts that have sent Republicans to Congress for generations, but are filled with educated women – a demographic that has fled the GOP more than anyone else.
"The political winds blow six times," said Rep. Mike Doyle, a Pittsburgh Democrat who is the dean of the Pennsylvania House delegation. "It would not surprise me if our state returns more seats than any state in the country."
In Pennsylvania, Democrats rely on gains in places like Chester County, the only state county that supported Mitt Romney in 2012 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. The county did not send any Democrat in Congress since the 19th century, said Terry Madonna, a professor at Franklin & Marshall College, a Pennsylvania policy specialist.
"In the suburbs, independent voters and women are moving away from the Republican Party at a fairly fast pace," said Ken Spain, former communications director of GOP House's campaign committee.
The new political dynamic was evident on Friday when Ms. Houlahan appeared in Coatesville with former Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head outside in 2011, and her husband Mark Kelly, a former astronaut. who now runs Giffords: Courage Fight Gun Violence, the gun control organization appointed for his wife.
Mr. Kelly and Ms. Giffords are on a national tour for Democratic candidates who support proposals such as universal background checks for firearms purchases.
On Friday, they played with Ms. Houlahan and Mikie Sherrill, the favorite to win one of four competitive races in New Jersey.
Among the people here to support Ms. Houlahan, there was Nicole Bowman, Marketing Writer from Reading, Pa. After filming the school earlier this year in Parkland, Florida, Ms. Bowman, 37, launched a local chapter of Moms Demand Action, the gun control group backed by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. More than 100 people attended the first meeting.
"For a moment, it was a feeling of helplessness here," Ms. Bowman said. "Now we have overwhelming support."
Houlahan, who raised $ 2.8 million, is a big favorite to win in November against Republican Greg McCauley, who raised only $ 174,000. After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court installed a new congressional map in February, GOP representative Ryan Costello decided not to run again. The Cook political report believes that the race is probably democratic.
"We are going where the opportunities are," Kelly said. "This message works well in some places and begins to spread."
He traveled to the state on Saturday to hold an event with Democratic Representative Conor Lamb, who in March shocked Republicans by winning a special election in a district of the Pittsburgh area. Mr. Trump earned 20 percentage points. Redistricting placed him in a district with three GOP representatives Keith Rothfus, in a race Cook's political report as the poor Democrat.
Mr. Lamb attributed his success to the hunger of Democratic voters to engage with them.
"We did not have any candidates for the race," Lamb said. "I think it's more about ground games and meeting people."
His GOP opponent, Rothfus, said his constituents are satisfied with the local economy and his race against Lamb is a battle for the future of Trump's presidency.
"This race is a kind of sign for the country," he said. "If we have Democrats at the head of the House of Representatives, you are considering a dismissal procedure against the President."
Neither Mr. Lamb nor the Democratic leaders of the House approved Mr. Trump's removal.
At Lamb's Saturday event at a fire station in Heidelberg, Pennsylvania, Ron Landay, an allergist from neighboring Mount Lebanon, said he had dropped out of the GOP because he had stopped appointing moderates . In 2016, he had a Hillary Clinton sign in his front yard.
"The Republican Party has gone too far right," he said.
Write to Reid J. Epstein at [email protected]
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