Top Republican groups were planning Thursday to deploy trackers to Capitol Hill to corner newly sworn-in House Democrats who had promised to oppose California Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s bid to reclaim the speaker’s gavel.
Congressional Leadership Fund, the House Republicans’ super PAC; and America Rising PAC, a GOP opposition research group, is placing five campaign trackers outside of the Capitol, and each of the three House office buildings. Both before and after the scheduled afternoon floor vote for speaker, the trackers plan to ask incoming House Democrats about their support for Pelosi, especially those who vowed opposition during the midterm election campaign.
“The joint effort will include trackers on the Hill to ask these members why they flipped on their promise to their constituents in their first act as a member of Congress,” said America Rising spokeswoman Sarah Dolan. “A rapid response communications effort will also be underway on social media to amplify their flip-flops.”
Trackers, video and audio recording devices in hand, have become a fixture of modern campaigns, as candidates and parties seek to monitor the opposition and catch embarrassing or off-the-cuff moments that could be used to their advantage. Trackers also tend to operate as faux journalists, asking opposition candidates questions that might be posed by reporters, but for the purposes of building a library of attack advertising.
America Rising has been doing this for several years, to boost Republican congressional and presidential campaigns. Congressional Leadership Fund, now under the direction of California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is about to take over as House minority leader, often engages in similar tactics.
Both groups’ opening move in the Republicans’ bid to take back the House in 2020 is based on putting Democrats on the spot — and on video — for backing Pelosi, to be used against them in their first re-election campaigns. This strategy’s effectiveness was questionable in 2018. House Republicans warned voters that a Democratic takeover meant Pelosi would once again become speaker, returning to the top spot she held from 2007 to 2011.
No matter. Democrats flipped 40 seats, and Pelosi, the House minority leader for the past eight years, is expected to easily win the Democratic votes she needs to win a return engagement as speaker.
Several incoming House Democrats, and some incumbents, had campaigned on opposing Pelosi’s leadership of the party on Capitol Hill. But she was able to win most of them over in a series of negotiations after the midterm elections. The sweeping nature of the Democratic Party’s House victory, coming in suburbs and exurbs across the country, boosted her position.
[Also read: Pelosi downplays her Hawaii vacation during the shutdown: ‘Totally unimportant’]
