House and Senate Democrats are rethinking their messaging after stunning losses on Nov. 3. Democrats returned to Congress this week chastened by the election results that fell far short of polling predictions. The party is now wondering if it is time to reform its message.
“The message wasn’t right, whatever it was,” Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, told the Washington Examiner.
Analysts predicted that Senate Democrats were likely to sweep into the majority by flipping as many as eight seats.
Instead, they won Republican seats in Arizona and Colorado and lost Alabama’s seat held by Democratic Sen. Doug Jones. Other Republicans, such as Sens. Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, and Joni Ernst, easily won their reelection efforts despite polling that showed them behind or in tight races.
Democrats expanded their 47-member caucus by just one vote and will remain in the minority unless they can win two Senate seats up for grabs in two Georgia runoff elections.
Manchin and other Senate Democrats who long advocated for a centrist agenda that avoided pledges to eliminate the filibuster, implement the Green New Deal, or pack the Supreme Court, said the election shows that voters do not support a far-left agenda.
“I’ve always thought the electorate is more moderate,” Manchin told the Washington Examiner.
Asked about eliminating the filibuster, which prominent party liberals called for ahead of the election, Manchin responded, “That’s crazy talk. Crazy talk.”
House Democrats are scheduled to return to the Capitol this week for the post-election “lame duck” session.
They’ll gather privately for leadership elections and likely a lot of self-reflection.
House Democrats performed particularly poorly on Election Day, failing to flip any seat defended by a GOP incumbent despite polling predictions to expand their majority by up to 15 seats.
They managed to win only three GOP seats left vacant in North Carolina and Georgia. Two wins in North Carolina were primarily the results of redistricting in favor of Democrats.
Republicans outperformed polls and have flipped eleven seats so far. They are on target for a net gain of at least eight seats, with many races still undecided.
If she is reelected to a fourth term with the gavel, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now poised to control the smallest majority since World War II.
Pelosi has yet to address the losses directly but told fellow Democrats and the media that Joe Biden’s victory marks a significant win and a mandate for the party.
But party centrists say the messaging to voters was hijacked by prominent members of the caucus’s far-left wing, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who supports defunding the police, eliminating immigration enforcement officers, and implementing a dramatic climate change plan, the Green New Deal.
“The brand has been weak for a while,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a centrist Michigan Democrat, said on MNSBC. “And therefore, every two years, you can superimpose whatever is the most popular thing, and you are going to convince some people that is what all Democrats are about.”
The liberal wing of the Democratic caucus is fighting back against the charge.
The Sunrise Movement, Justice Democrats, and other liberal groups circulated a letter last week, doubling down on the liberal message and arguing that Democrats did not do enough to embrace their base and show they will work to raise wages, support Black Lives Matter, and implement a wealth tax, among other initiatives.
The groups attacked Pelosi over her April appearance on the Late Late Show. Pelosi conducted the interview from her San Francisco home while eating expensive ice cream in front of two costly freezers.
“When Democratic leaders make unforced errors like showing off two sub-zero freezers full of ice cream on national television or cozy up with Wall Street executives and corporate lobbyists while Trump tells voters we are the party of the swamp, it is not surprising that we lose,” the letter said. “We need a new generation of leadership grounded in a multiracial, working-class experience and background.”
So far, nobody is challenging Pelosi for the speaker’s job. Still, the head of the House Democratic campaign arm, Rep. Cheri Bustos, announced she’ll step down from her position after narrowly winning reelection to her Illinois seat.
Ocasio-Cortez defended the progressive agenda and said that slogans, including “Defund the Police,” came from activists, not the Democratic Party.
“The messaging hurt to the extent that it did because our operations and investments are not great, and it makes the party vulnerable,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter. “The blind impulse to blame activists and the left both demoralizes a key constituency and distracts from asking real questions and fixing serious operational issues.”
