The rise of Democratic contender Bernie Sanders has top House Republicans optimistic the party will recapture the majority this November, and they have their fingers crossed he will seize the nomination.
The Republican Party lost the House in 2018 amid heavy defections from key voting blocs dissatisfied with President Trump. With Sanders emerging as the Democratic front-runner this month, House Republican leaders are convinced the GOP is now poised to win back the chamber. In interviews Thursday, they characterized the socialist Vermont senator as a virtual panacea for nearly every political challenge the party faces heading into the fall, and his success is helping them whether he gains the nomination or not.
“The majority is in play,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California told the Washington Examiner before speaking at a gathering in D.C. to boost female Republican congressional candidates. Added McCarthy’s deputy, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana: “Bernie puts the House even more in play than it already is. I can’t think of one swing district Democrat that would want to invite Bernie Sanders into their district.”
[LIST: Democrats saying what a terrible nominee Bernie Sanders would be]
Republicans need to flip at least 18 seats to win the House and are honed in on 30 held by Democrats who voted for Trump in 2016. Congressional leaders typically hedge when discussing their party’s prospects, wary of raising expectations this far from Election Day.
But, after Sanders, 78, jumped out to a sizable lead in the Democratic presidential primary following nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, House Republicans were gleeful. Sanders describes himself as a “democratic socialist” and is proposing to nationalize healthcare and significantly increase taxes. Republicans credit his surge and growing influence inside the Democratic Party for minimizing their intraparty divisions and boosting support for Trump with critical voting blocs.
Senior House Republicans insist that whoever wins the Democratic nomination is going to be saddled with the “socialist” label and pave the way for considerable GOP gains. Still, they concede there is no Democrat they would rather run against.
“This actually is going to be a choice between freedom and socialism,” said Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, who is unequivocally predicting a House takeover. “If it is Bernie Sanders, you couldn’t get a better distinction between the two choices.”
Sanders has opened up an 11-point lead among Democratic voters nationally on the cusp of Super Tuesday. More than 15 states and U.S. territories are scheduled on March 3 to hold primaries that could put the senator on an unstoppable march toward the nomination.
The mood in the Republican Party is remarkably different than it was this time last year, when the GOP was still sifting through the wreckage of the midterm elections. In particular, House Republicans were grappling with a steep drop in support among female voters that cost them the House, a problem magnified by how few GOP women were left in the chamber, 13, after the drubbing.
Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York responded by launching E-PAC, a political action committee designed to recruit and fund female candidates in contested GOP primaries. Sanders and a Democratic primary influenced by the left wing of the party has made that task exceedingly easier, Stefanik said during a conversation with reporters after hosting a gathering for E-PAC to showcase some of her recruits.
“The atmospherics have changed,” she said. “The fact that the president has a record of significant results — he has historic high approval ratings — and you have a nominee that’s likely to be Bernie Sanders, someone who is a self-identified socialist, that makes the choice very crystal clear.”
