It’s yet to attract the attention of Hillary Clinton’s ad buys, much less Jeb Bush’s tweet. But issues of gun violence and gun rights look poised to drive another storyline during the 2016 election cycle: An unusually high number of the National Rifle Association’s allies in Congress face stiff reelection fights this year.
Across both houses of Congress, 24 incumbents find themselves in competitive contests, according to the Cook Political Report’s most recent analysis. Of those, 18 were rated at least an A- by the NRA during their last election. …
The job of protecting the NRA’s favored officeholders falls to the group’s Political Victory Fund (PVF), for which the electoral math has shifted significantly. Compared to its standing in the past two federal elections, the PVF is now a distinctly partisan organization. As recently as 2012 and 2014 there were at least six Democrats up for re-election who had stayed in the group’s good graces, and five of them received the NRA’s endorsement. This time around, all of the A-rated incumbents facing serious challenges this year belong to the GOP.
Read full story here at The Trace.