- Chief Political Editor,John Waage, is joining us now.

He's done a study of this.

John, the Republicans releaseda list of 48 House Democrats

that they're targeting in '22.

That's a huge number!

And why do they believe thatmany Democrats are vulnerable?

- Yeah, when you consider,Pat, that they need five,

maybe six, to take over the House,

having 48 seats to choose from is

a pretty good luxury at this point.

You know, we just selected maybe

six of 'em out of the total.

And they includeCalifornia's 45th District,

where it's Orange County.

And then also Florida's 17thDistrict, with Charlie Crist,

and the Illinois 17th,where one of the Democratic

campaign committee membersis the representative.

And also...

in Virginia, the 2ndDistrict and Wisconsin,

the 3rd District and NewJersey's 3rd District.

Those are six of them were looking at.

But of course, with 48,

you could look at almost any of 'em.

- Well have you actuallydone some of the numbers

of the polling now?

Can you give us some specifics

about several of those states?

- Well, one thing Pat, isthat many of those districts

are districts that either Biden lost

or that he won narrowly.

Also, they're districts thatwere previously occupied

by Republicans until 2018,when Republicans lost 40 seats.

So, that's really what they're targeting,

is districts that have asizeable Republican percentage

with them, but may have beenupset by President Trump.

And this is where they're looking,

is just the opportunity that's presented

from being the party out of power.

Because, since World War II,

27 seats is the numberthat a party tends to gain.

So with fighting the Democrats in 2022,

Republicans have verymuch a built-in advantage.

- John, are they goingto run on personalities?

Like we've got these wonderful women,

these wonderful Hispanics and so forth,

or were they gonna runstrictly on message,

that our message is so much more powerful

than what the Democrats have?

- Yeah, I think they'regoing to run to an extent

on their diversity.

We saw that in the RepublicanConvention in 2020.

And it truly is becominga more diverse party.

We saw these Republicanconservative women,

who did quite well inthe 2020 House elections.

So there will be that element of it.

I think they'll also berunning against the Democrats

and we'll have another 15,16 months of seeing the kind

of policies that we'veseen in the first 100 days.

That's certainly goingto be on the agenda.

And I think that it willgo district by district,

but I think you can capitalize

on the dissatisfaction as well.

You know, Pat, there are I think five

congressional districtsthey're targeting in Texas,

three or four in California,three in New York state,

two in Nevada, two in Arizona.

So some of these contestedstates, where the elections

were very questionable inthe eyes of Republicans,

they're really targetingsome House races there.

- You know, here, we'rein the 2nd District,

that's where we are, of Virginia.

And there's a guy named Scott Taylor,

who had been a former Congressman,

but he had some things that he had done

that made him really vulnerable.

And he was targeted.

We just saw ad, after ad, after ad,

not so much supportingElaine Luria, the Democrat,

but knocking Scott Taylor.

Do you think she is vulnerable?

This used to be a safe Republican seat.

- Yeah, and that's whyElaine Luria is on the list

of 48 House seats.

Because, although Biden wonthe district by five points,

if they field a good candidate,and this is true, Pat,

for around the country, ifthey field the candidate

and unite around himand they don't have any

extraneous things to give theopposition the opportunity

to really undercut, then theyreally have a solid chance

of taking back the House.

And that's true from coast to coast,

where the whole policiesof, even lockdown,

you know the New York18th District is not one

that was on our list, but in New York,

Sean Maloney is theDemocratic Campaign Chair.

So he's targeted by theRepublicans as well.

And they really think that, you know,

a rising tide can lift all boats,

and that's where theRepublicans feel that they are.

When there's an unpopular president,

we saw the Republicansgain 53 seats in 1994.

You remember that one, Pat,

and 60 seats the Republicans gained

in Obama's first off-year elections, 2010.

So we're talking about, you know,

really capitalizing onunpopular positions.

And we've certainly seen some of those

in the opening days ofthe Biden Administration.

- John, one thing, formerPresident Trump has decided

he's gonna go after allthose people who supported

impeachment againsthim and he's attacking,

especially Liz Cheney andothers who are Republicans.

Do you think, is he gonna hurt the efforts

to win these five seats, do you think?

- I don't think so, Pat.

We'll have to wait and see.

You know, the Scripture in Matthew says

"A house divided againstitself cannot stand."

I think that the party is pretty solidly

behind President Trump.

I think that targeting these

senators and congressmen is popular

with a good portion of the base,

who are pretty angry about some

of the public stands they've taken.

That'll be one of the first tests

is to see the primaries in2022 and see if the candidates

President Trump is gonnasupport actually defeat

candidates like LizCheney and Adam Kinzinger

and some people like that.

It's a very public showdown.

And you remember that in 2016,the chant that went forward,

the main battle cry was "Drain the Swamp."

The swamp hasn't been drainedand what the base feels

is they've learned a lot of Republicans

are part of the swamp,and those are the ones

that seemingly are gonnabe dealt with first.

We'll see how successfulformer President Trump is

in dealing with that.