According to a new report published by Politico on Tuesday, Republicans who represented some of the safest congressional seats in their party for years are suddenly under intense pressure in 2018, with Democratic challengers threatening to overwhelm them in suburban districts where Donald Trump has struggled.

One of those districts belongs to Rep. Steve Chabot, an 11-term Republican who has gone years without a serious challenge in the southwestern corner of Ohio.

This time, however, Chabot has been outraised — and, some Republicans say, outworked — by Democrat Aftab Pureval, the 35-year-old clerk of courts in Cincinnati’s Hamilton County, who argues that the congressman has lost touch with a diversifying, suburbanizing district changing beneath his feet.

“The momentum is with us … even though people can’t even pronounce my name,” Pureval said to laughter at a recent field office opening northeast of Cincinnati.

Pureval is pitching himself as an independent voice to voters in Chabot’s district. “As a Democrat, I reduced the size of government and saved the taxpayers nearly $1 million,” Pureval told Politico in a recent interview.

As noted by Politico, Chabot is not alone. A growing number of GOP lawmakers that includes Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) and John Culberson (R-Texas), who have served a combined 80 years in Congress in traditionally Republican areas, are dusting off their campaigns for the first time in a decade in a treacherous political environment.

Chabot has faced tough races before, but he has not been challenged since the Republican-controlled redistricting process redrew the district the next year.

“It just took a little while to get him, you know, built back up and run a race because he hasn’t been targeted since 2010, and he won pretty comfortably then,” said National Republican Congressional Chairman Steve Stivers (R-Ohio). “Now has his organization up and humming the way he used to when he was in tough races,” Stivers added.

Another national Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly, had a harsher assessment: “The question is, can some of these incumbents, including Chabot, be defossilized?”

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Chabot’s campaign spokesman Cody Rizzuto called Pureval a “far-left liberal,” adding that he’s “confident the voters will soundly reject his extremist views and associations.”

Chabot is also taking his argument to the airwaves, attacking Pureval for his tenure at the Hamilton County clerk’s office. The ad shows a clip of Pureval saying, “The era of political patronage — of ‘it’s more important who you know than what you know’ — is over.” Then, a narrator cuts in and says, “Aftab broke that promise on his very first day in office.

“He started firing longtime employees and used your tax dollars as hush money to buy their silence. Aftab replaced them with his own political cronies, including the son of the Democratic Party chairman.”

Pureval’s campaign responded with its own ad, calling the attacks “simply [not] true,” adding that “it’s not surprising that Chabot is running a negative campaign.”

“He’s a politician who’s been in Congress for 22 years and has little to show for it,” the narrator of Pureval’s ad continued.

Republicans acknowledge a close race is brewing.

“Chabot is a name brand and Pureval is the new product on the market,” said Mark Weaver, a Republican consultant in the state. “It’ll come down to the west side of Cincinnati, who know Chabot well, but you also can’t deny the Democratic enthusiasm.”

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