Five Democrats are vying for the Rep. Rodney Davis' congressional seat in 2018, but he's looking at the first year he won't face a primary challenge in his own party and he believes the upcoming year will be a good one for Republicans like himself.
"There's been historic regulatory rollback and historic economic growth, and the tax bill," the Illinois congressman told CNN on Tuesday. "I think 2018 will be good for Republicans like me."
According to the Federal Elections Commission, CNN noted, Democrats in 80 districts do not have a Republican opponent for their seats.
"My district is the first time since I have run that I also have not had a primary challenge," said Davis. "That's what running for Congress is about. When you look at the districts throughout the nation, many districts where there are no Republicans filing, those are overwhelmingly 80 to 90 percent Republican districts.
"It's areas like mine that will be the battleground for the control that [House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi wants to gain back."
Historically, he continued, Democrats would do well in a midterm election like the one coming up, but "it's a long time until November of 2018 and I think the policies we have worked with the administration on to implement will be good for Republicans come Election Day."
Davis also said he'd welcome President Donald Trump to campaign for him, even with his 35 percent average approval rating.
"I love the poll numbers," said Davis. "Thirty-five percent nationwide is higher than you and the media get. If the president wanted to come and campaign in central Illinois, I don't think I would be the only member of congress to welcome him to do that."
Candidates are always paired up with the presidents from their party, Davis continued, and he thinks there is much he and Trump could present together, especially upcoming tax cuts.
"Come February, when employers will be required to withhold less money in taxes because families in my district are going to owe less taxes to Uncle Sam," said Davis. "Whether or not I align myself with Trump or not doesn't mean the Democrats will make that their campaign message against me and many others.
"I would say it's going to be better for President Trump and me and many other Republicans to talk about the areas of success we worked together on rather than creating the partisan divide that the Democrats will only use to their advantage."
Davis plans to introduce a tax bill making the individual tax cuts permanent, and believes economic growth will reduce the deficit.
"The scoring agencies in Washington are not infallible," said Davis. "I helped to write a foreign bill in 2014 that said would only save taxpayers $23 billion in mandatory spending and in less than three years they came back and said they were wrong, we saved $104 billion.
"We believe the economic growth will reduce the deficit, I hope from what I read from [Sen] Bernie Sanders this weekend that he joins me when we pass that bill over to the Senate."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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