DCCC touts recruitment wins

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is circulating a list of 60 recruits it hopes can help retake the House next fall, reaching its stated recruitment goal.

Almost all of the candidates on the list have previously been announced. Some of the featured Democrats seem on paper to be good candidates for the Republican-leaning districts they plan to run for: former U.S. Attorney Rob Wallace in Oklahoma, former Air Force officer Jonathan George in Indiana and Raul Ruiz in Rep. Mary Bono Mack's (R-Calif.) GOP-leaning district.

The list also includes 2010 recruits and former members of Congress who lost in that year's Republican wave: former Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.), Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Ohio), Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), Bill Foster (D-Ill.) and Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.), as well as 2010 candidates Gary McDowell (Mich.), Anne McLane Kuster (N.H.), Ami Bera (Calif.), Tarryl Clark (Minn.), Denny Heck (D-Wash.) and Mike Oliverio (W.Va.).

The list comes as Democrats tout new polling showing they have overtaken the GOP on the generic congressional ballot: Reuters/Ipsos found Democrats ahead among registered voters by 48 percent to 40, and the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll gave them a four-point edge (45-41) on whether voters would prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress. Republicans have led on those polls for much of the past two years.

National Republican Congressional Committee Spokesperson Joanna Burgos sought to tie all of the candidates on the list to Grayson, a polarizing liberal, and President Obama. "It’s embarrassing for any candidate to be grouped with someone as crazy as Alan Grayson, but the biggest vulnerability for everyone on this list is that they all fully support President Obama’s job-destroying agenda," she said.

Democrats led in the generic ballot of registered voters for much of the last decade, even ahead of Republicans wins in Congress, because polls of registered voters tend to skew slightly Democratic. But this is a good sign for the party as they look to net the 25 seats necessary to win back control of the House next fall.

This post was updated at 6:41 p.m. to include Burgos's comment.