Donald Trump lost the popular vote earlier this month, but House Republicans actually won the national popular vote over House Democrats by about 3.3 million votes. That’s despite the fact that Democrats fielded half a dozen more candidates than the Republicans did. That’s a poor performance in age of nearly universal discontent with Congress and congressional Republicans in particular.
But that a problem exists in House Democrats’ lack of appeal to the voting public doesn’t imply that there’s any easy solution for them.
Today, a third House Democrat — Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Tex. — threw his support behind Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, in his quixotic bid to replace Pelosi next week as House Democratic leader. No one gives Ryan much of a chance of defeating her. Nor should they, and it’s not just because Pelosi has so many House Democrats behind her just within her own California delegation. It’s also because Ryan is really not an ideal candidate for knocking her out of the party’s top spot.
On the plus side, Ryan represents Youngstown, and precisely the sort of constituency where Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic base on election day. He talks about getting Democrats who represent “flyover country” more involved in the party’s decisionmaking.
Then again, there just aren’t very many Democratic House members in flyover country (50 or so, depending on how you decide to count). And after 14 years in Congress, Ryan hasn’t exactly proven himself a mover and a shaker. He’s a lot more like the guy who lucked out, won the primary in a safe Democratic district that can’t be broken up in redistricting, and has acted like he’s content to stay there for life.
You could easily be forgiven if you didn’t realize there are two men in the House with the surname Ryan. Tim Ryan has served through both Republican and Democratic control of the House, but in all that time he has sponsored only three bills that have become law. One renamed a courthouse, one renamed a Post Office, and one transferred ownership of a federal building in his district to a county government. Before he announced against Pelosi, the only time he’s made news that I’m aware of is when he changed his stance on abortion (when originally elected, he called himself pro-life).
Ryan now has three congressional Democrats publicly backing him: O’Rourke and Reps. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y. and Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo. O’Rourke, who represents El Paso, didn’t give any ideological explanation for his annoucncement today that he’s backing Ryan, limiting himself on Medium to a plain-vanilla expression of support for new blood:
I am grateful for Nancy Pelosi’s service as House Speaker and as the Democratic leader for the last 14 years. But I believe that for any organization to succeed, there must be change in leadership to ensure that it continues to meet new and evolving opportunities and challenges. It’s one of the reasons that I believe in term limits, and why I support them for every member of Congress. Limiting our term of service, even as Leader of the caucus, shows that we have faith in the ability of others to step up and serve.
Pelosi is not known for forgiving members who cross her — just ask former Rep. and Democratic House caucus chairman Martin Frost, D-Tex., who had the temerity to announce a challenge to Pelosi in 2002 for minority leader. He dropped out less than 24 hours later, but he never held another party leadership position again.
On the other hand, Pelosi isn’t going to be in the House forever. This has to factor into the decision by younger Democrats, like O’Rourke and Rice, to stick their necks out on a 100-to-1 longshot candidate like Ryan.
