Republicans are pouring cash into House districts that voted for President Biden by as much as 20 points, targeting under-the-radar battlegrounds amid growing signs of a red wave, Axios' Andrew Solender reports.

Why it matters: Infusions of funding by both parties into these solidly blue seats signal the potential for a Republican landslide, further complicating the Democratic calculus on which races to defend.

Context: These districts are bluer than Washington state, which backed Biden by 19 points in 2020.

Driving the news: The NRCC is making three six-figure investments in districts that went for Biden by 20 points in 2020, a source familiar with the matter tells Axios.

• California's 26th: Rep. Julia Brownley (D) is sounding the alarm to colleagues about her surprisingly competitive race against Republican Matt Jacobs, as the GOP makes inroads in other West Coast blue states.
• New York's 25th: Rep. Joe Morelle (D) faces former Rochester police chief La’Ron Singletary — who garnered headlines in 2020 when he was fired after the death of a man in police custody — as crime has emerged as a top issue in New York.
• Pennsylvania's 12th: Progressive Democrat Summer Lee is running in this Pittsburgh-based district to replace Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) — against a Republican local legislator also named Mike Doyle.

The other side: "The NRCC and [chairperson] Tom Emmer can chase windmills all day long while their endangered incumbents struggle — but the DCCC along with outside spenders will make sure Matt Jacobs, La'Ron Singletary and Mike Doyle never see the halls of Congress," DCCC spokesperson Tommy Garcia told Axios.

The intrigue: The name confusion in Pennsylvania's 12th has led at least some Democratic voters to mistakenly vote by mail against Lee, according to her campaign manager Abigail Gardner.

• "It’s come up, but it’s not every voter,” Gardner told Axios. "It’s a lot of older folks who are just used to voting for [Rep. Doyle] and think maybe he switched parties."
• Lee's campaign has been working hard to clear up the confusion, running ads and sending texts differentiating between the two Doyles.

Go deeper: Other unlikely battlegrounds are popping up on both parties' radars. House Majority PAC spent a whopping $2.3 million this week to help Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), a moderate representing a district Biden carried by 12 points.

• VoteVets, another deep-pocketed Democratic outside group, spent $2 million this week boosting Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), whose Biden +17 district isn't even on the Cook Political Report's list of potentially vulnerable seats.
• Both parties are now pouring millions into DCCC chair Sean Patrick Maloney's Hudson Valley district (Biden +10), as Republicans bet big for a powerful symbolic victory.

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Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie campaigned for moderate-minded Republicans this week in New York, Colorado and Oregon — blue states where GOP upsets could usher in a major red wave.

Why it matters: The stops are part of a concerted political strategy by Christie, a possible 2024 presidential candidate, to help build a broad GOP coalition that can appeal to independents and moderate Democrats.

• If Republicans win back power thanks to a sizable red wave, many of the party's majority-makers will be pragmatists from Biden-friendly districts.
• That would be good news for Trump-critical Republicans like Christie, who will be looking for 2024 allies that aren't tied to the MAGA movement.

What they're saying: "This year reminds me a lot of 2014, when people thought I was crazy [as Republican Governors Association chairman] to spend money in Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois. We wound up winning all three of those governorships," Christie told Axios.

• "When you have an atmosphere like this, you press hard into those blue areas as long as we have the right candidates with the right message," Christie added.

The bottom line: The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter moved six Democratic-held seats toward Republicans this week — all in blue districts that Biden handily carried.

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A new USA Today/Suffolk University poll of likely voters found Republicans hold a four-point lead on the congressional generic ballot (49%-45%), marking a turnaround from the July polling, when Democrats led by four points.

• Most of the 16% of voters who were undecided ended up breaking toward supporting Republican candidates, according to the poll. Only 6% remain undecided.

Why it matters: Perhaps even more concerning for Democrats than the overall numbers was the party's slippage with nonwhite voters. The poll found 40% of Hispanic voters supporting Republicans, with 21% of African American voters backing the GOP.

• In 2020, Trump won 37% of the Hispanic vote and 10% of the Black vote, according to analysis from the Democratic data firm Catalist.

The bottom line: Democrats' aggressive focus on abortion has risked making them seem inattentive to Americans' economic concerns.

• Over one-third of voters (37%) rated the economy or inflation as their top issue, with abortion ranking a distant second (18%).
• But the abortion issue has created a huge gender gap: Independent women favor the Democratic candidate by 11 points (51%-40%), but independent men back the GOP candidate by 22 points (57%-35%).

Here's a novel campaign tactic from Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) less than two weeks before the election: Vote for me to avoid political craziness spilling into December.

• "Guess who's coming to Thanksgiving?" a narrator asks, as Warnock walks into a family's Thanksgiving dinner.
• Warnock then says: "That's right: I could be interrupting your Thanksgiving because if no one gets 50% of the vote, there will be a runoff. And nobody wants that to happen."

Why it matters: It's possible the outcome of a Dec. 6 runoff between Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker would determine which party holds the Senate majority next year. In 2020, Democrats scored two upsets in Georgia's runoffs to win control of the Senate.

Former President Obama is making a closing pitch for Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in an ad from Put Michigan First, a group connected to the Democratic Governors Association.

• "Gretchen Whitmer is Michigan tough. She doesn't back down, and she gets the job done," Obama says in the ad.

Zoom in: Obama campaigned with Whitmer on Saturday in Detroit, one of the campaign rallies he's holding for Democrats in the campaign's closing stretch.

• He has also cut similar ads for other Democratic candidates, including Pennsylvania gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro, North Carolina Senate nominee Cheri Beasley and Maryland gubernatorial nominee Wes Moore.

The bottom line: Whitmer is favored to win re-election against Republican Tudor Dixon, but her 13-point lead in the FiveThirtyEight polling average at the beginning of the month has shrunk to five points.

• The fact that Obama is spending one of his few campaign rallies in Michigan is a sign Democrats aren't taking this race for granted.
• Hillary Clinton scheduled a last-minute rally in Detroit before the 2016 election, a surprising move that foreshadowed her statewide defeat to Donald Trump.