Standing On Shaky Ground

R+8 Republicans Have Long Coasted By, Answering for Nothing. But in 2026, No Seat is Safe.

There’s a particular kind of political entitlement that only grows in safe districts. No serious opponent. No real vetting. No reckoning. Just a primary full of red meat, a general election that’s a formality, and then two years of cashing donor checks and casting votes that actively make voters’ lives worse.

That’s the world Republican members in so-called “safe” seats – generally R+8 seats and above – have lived in for years. But in 2026, with Donald Trump’s approval rating at its lowest-ever level and the political headwinds in Democrats’ favor following romps everywhere from Virginia to Mar-a-Lago, the time is right to hold these entrenched Republican incumbents truly accountable for the first time.

American Bridge 21st Century launched The Shaky 8’s campaign to do just that. In the months ahead, we’ll work to make voters in 16 R+8-or-higher House Republican districts across 10 states painfully aware of just who is representing them in the halls of Congress and asking for their votes on November 3rd – members whose records are catastrophically out of step with their districts; who have broken the promises they made in 2024 to stabilize the job market, cool inflation, and protect health care; and whose personal conduct ranges from embarrassing to potentially criminal.

This project is more than just an expansion of our target list. It’s a reflection of our belief in the core democratic ideal that no seat is “safe” – that Democrats should run everywhere and can win anywhere, especially when their Republican opponents are corrupt, out of touch, or just flat out lazy.

Here’s why The Shaky 8’s matter, and what we’re going to do about them.

These candidates have never been seriously vetted – by their constituents, by the media, or by their parties.

When a Republican wins a primary in a “safe” seat, the assumption is that the general election is a layup. So campaigns don’t invest there. National party money goes elsewhere. Local journalists are stretched thin. And these members coast into office, without anyone ever really examining who they are or what they’ve done.

The result? Congress winds up full of people like Andy Ogles of Tennessee, who claimed to be an economist after earning a C in his only econ course, is under active FBI investigation for allegedly misreporting a campaign loan by $300,000, and raised money using a photo of his stillborn child for a children’s burial garden that was apparently never built — and never accounted for the funds. He ran without tough headwinds in his 2022 and 2024 general elections. He’s never really had to answer for any of this.

Or Brad Knott of North Carolina, who voted in five elections from the wrong address (potentially a Class I felony), whose first campaign was boosted with $700,000 from his brother through a single-candidate super PAC, and who supported devastating food assistance and health care cuts, but won’t face his constituents in-person about it. Veterans literally protested outside his locked office because he won’t hold an in-person town hall.

Republicans regularly run on policy platforms that don’t line up with the will of the people, yes. That’s bad enough. But they also have severe candidate quality problems hiding behind favorable maps and Democrats’ inability to surface the full picture for their voters. Until now – we’ve made our first-rate opposition research on each of the 16 Shaky 8’s publicly available through our Research Books platform, enabling voters, journalists, campaigns, and influencers alike to access, understand, and make decisions based on the history of these members.

Democrats can win in these places. But only if they show up.

The conventional wisdom says you don’t spend money in R+8 districts. And the conventional wisdom is often right — in a neutral environment. But we are not in a neutral environment.

Tariffs and the war in Iran are raising prices on the same constituents these members swore to protect. The reconciliation bill they all voted for strips Medicaid from hundreds of thousands of people in their own districts, all while the SNAP cuts they voted for hit states the USDA ranks at the bottom for food insecurity. And these members went back to their districts and lied about what they voted for.

French Hill told Arkansas constituents he had “never voted to end Medicare or Medicaid.” He had. Tom McClintock admitted tariffs were “bad public policy” and “self-sabotaging,” then voted to keep them anyway. Abe Hamadeh claimed his Medicaid vote included “no cuts to Medicaid” — a claim PolitiFact rated false.

When the environment shifts and voters actually learn who these members are and what they’ve done, the math changes. That’s not just hopeful spin — the collapse is already happening. What’s missing is the infrastructure to accelerate it. And that’s where we come in.

Targeting these races won’t make them slam dunks. But it’s still worth doing.

Here’s the strategic argument that doesn’t get made enough: you don’t have to flip every seat to benefit from targeting them.

When Richard Hudson — the chair of the NRCC, the committee responsible for holding the Republican House majority — has to spend money defending his own seat in NC-09, that’s money and attention not going to offense. When Virginia Foxx is dealing with a challenger in NC-05 who can run on her decades of votes against children’s insurance, $35 insulin, and Medicaid, she’s not using her Rules Committee gavel to its full political effect. When 16 members in 10 states are all simultaneously getting walloped with their actual records, Republicans have to make triage decisions. Every dollar they spend playing defense is a dollar not spent flipping competitive seats elsewhere.

This is how caucus-level damage happens. Not through one or two dramatic flips, but through a sustained, distributed pressure campaign that forces the other side to fight everywhere at once. American Bridge is going to wage that kind of campaign over the next six months.

These members are shaky for a reason. They’ve never had to answer for anything. That’s about to change.