Democratic Rep.Tim Ryan criticized his own party on Sunday for declining to focus on economic issues during the 2016 election cycle, saying Democrats need to rebrand themselves if they want to win in the midterms.
“We need a brand as a party that says we are the party that’s going to help working class people, white people, black people, brown people, gay people, straight people improve opportunity for them to grow their wages [and] to have economic security,” Ryan, who is challenging California Rep. Nancy Pelosi for House minority leader, told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“We got off that message. When we don’t talk about economics, we lose elections,” he added.
Ryan pointed to issues like increased federal funding to fight the Zika virus as an example of an issue that Democrats focused too much on in the months leading up to the election.
“That’s not a deep economic message, that’s not a national message,” he said.
The Ohio congressman encourages his colleagues to look inward and understand that changes need to be made if they wish to win back congressional seats in districts that supported Republican President-elect Trump.
“The American people asked us to make a change here and we’ve got to do it,” he said.
He continued, “This economic message should drive everything we talk about as Democrats: poverty, middle class wages, gun violence. These are economic issues that the Democratic party has lost its way and if we want these Trump voters to come back, we need to start talking about these bread-and-butter fundamental issues that make us Democrats.”
