Republicans have their eyes on the House majority in 2022, but Democrats hope they can defy recent history and maintain control.
Democrats are in the midst of figuring out why they may have lost as many as 13 House seats after ballot counting is complete in all races.
Speculation over Democrats’ failure to protect newly flipped blue districts and target competitive red districts ranges from wrong messaging to the failure to do enough for vulnerable freshman Democrats competing in districts President Trump won in 2016.
House Democrats pointed fingers at each other immediately following the election over who was to blame for the striking losses, with Rep. Abigail Spanberger claiming more leftist Democratic lawmakers who touted “socialism” and “defunding of the police” made reelection efforts difficult for her and other members.
The Virginia Democrat, among others, warned that such messaging would only hurt more Democrats in future elections.
Rep. Brad Sherman told the Washington Examiner, however, that the midterm elections need to be played out differently than a presidential election year.
“We do have to study the results of 2020, but ’22 is like a whole different ballgame. It’s literally like, you didn’t score as many touchdowns in 2020, so how are you going to score more runs in 2022? We’re playing baseball next time. This was the highest turnout in history, going back into the 1800s. The next race, we may have only half as many voters,” the California Democrat said.
He continued, “So the argument always isn’t our party. If you want to drive up turnout, go to the Left. If you want to win over the middle, and you’ve got to win over the middle, well, those are two different things. So while it’s important to look at 2020, we have to get gearing up for 2022. It is a completely different game.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat who led the 2018 first-term Democratic class of progressive lawmakers, defended the “defund the police” position and the progressive caucus members who stood behind it. She told the Washington Examiner that she would like to see her party go bolder on the issue of prescription drug pricing in the 2022 cycle.
“I think even some of my colleagues on the more moderate ends of the caucus, particularly those who don’t accept corporate PAC money, would agree. And so I think that there’s kind of a push from all ends of the caucus,” she said. “I think the difference is actually more generational than ideological in terms of going stronger and harder in lowering prescription drug prices, and I’m on a broader and deeper level.”
This may be good news for Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who was considered a vulnerable freshman member and won reelection but hopes the Democratic Party sticks to legislation that can pass both the House and the Senate.
“If we try to just kind of throw spaghetti against the wall, everybody has their pet bill, but we lose that strategic plan, then we’re going to have nothing concrete to show our constituents, and that’ll be a problem in general and specifically for 2022,” the Michigan Democrat told the Washington Examiner.
