House: Speaker Nancy Pelosi will face questions over Dems’ performance.
Questions ahead on bad polls and underperforming
WASHINGTON — Democrats were expected to maintain their House majority after Tuesday’s election — but the surprising loss of several frontline Democrats in battleground seats raised questions for Speaker Nancy Pelosi about her leadership of the caucus.
More than 40 races across the country remained undecided, including a handful of seats in California that Democrats hold and one they lost in a May special election. Party aides were optimistic they could still pick up some seats.
But by Wednesday afternoon, Republicans had flipped seven seats nationally to Democrats’ two, which would cut into Pelosi’s current majority of 232 members to Republicans’ 197.
The results defied polls conducted by the Democratic Party and outside experts, raising questions about what the party might have missed. One Democratic lawmaker, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about party leadership, said Pelosi, D-San Francisco, would have to offer a response to her caucus, and that attention would focus on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House Democrats’ campaign apparatus.
“Lots of surprise,” the member said of the mood among colleagues. “We didn’t see it coming. Polling was strong and then this was a gut punch. She is going to have to respond. Changes at the DCCC to respond are imminent. The question is whether she supports members pushing it or takes the reins and does it preemptively.”
Pelosi is not directly responsible for the campaign strategy, though she wields heavy influence. She sets the party’s agenda and the tone for party messaging.
The DCCC chairwoman, Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, was trailing in her own race for reelection. Democratic lawmakers directly select their DCCC chair.
In a joint news conference on election day, Pelosi had sounded confident and praised Bustos for her fundraising, strategy and candidate recruitment.
“Tonight, House Democrats are poised to further strengthen our majority ... thanks to you, Madame Chair,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi, often hailed as a master strategist, will almost certainly remain speaker next year. Perennial challenges to her leadership have never come close to unseating her as caucus leader.
The Hill website, which specializes in congressional coverage, cited two unnamed Democrats on Wednesday as saying they were seeking a challenger to Pelosi’s speakership, but their top candidate, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, said he wasn’t interested. Any potential replacement would be hardpressed to replace her ability as a party fundraiser — Pelosi brought in nearly $ 200 million for the DCCC this election cycle.
In a letter to her colleagues late Wednesday afternoon, Pelosi said the House majority would be poised to enact its agenda in a possible Joe Biden administration, but acknowledged the results of the race.
“Though it was a challenging election, all of our candidates ... made us proud,” Pelosi said. “Their drumbeat for the people enabled Democrats to hold the House and flipped critical battleground states, building our margins across the board. Our discipline in building a massive battlefield proved essential in keeping the majority.”
Many Democrats said they still supported Pelosi’s leadership, but that the party will have to figure out what went wrong.
“I think trying to blame Nancy Pelosi for any of this is off the mark,” said Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael. “She’s led us very well and put us in position to have a chance. I don’t think it’s her fault that our DCCC polling was so wildly inaccurate in a lot of places. And it’s not her fault that ( President) Trump somehow managed to have really strong turnout with his supporters. Our turnout was strong, too.”
Huffman said he didn’t think leadership seats were immediately in jeopardy, but that there would need to be analysis of what happened.
“There has to be a reckoning,” Huffman said. “I don’t know about personal reckoning in leadership, but there has to be a reckoning in how we analyze these races. We were just way off.”
Pelosi’s spokesperson said she was focused on uncalled House races.
“Today is not about the race for speaker,” said spokesperson Drew Hammill. “Today is about the race for the White House and ensuring that our members and candidates in uncalled races have the support they need. That is our focus.”
Among those uncalled races was one in the San Joaquin Valley, where Democratic Rep. TJ Cox of Fresno was narrowly trailing former GOP Rep. David Valadao of Hanford ( Kings County). In 2018, Cox beat Valadao by 862 votes in a contest that wasn’t decided until nearly a month after election day.
Another race too close to call was in Southern California, where Democrats were looking to take back a seat they lost in a special election in May. Democratic Assemblywoman Christy Smith held a narrow lead over GOP Rep. Mike Garcia of Santa Clarita ( Los Angeles County) in a seat that swings from the high desert towns of Lancaster and Palmdale west to the Ventura County city of Simi Valley.
Democrats won the seat two years ago, but Garcia defeated
Smith in the special election after Democratic Rep. Katie Hill resigned in the aftermath of a sex scandal.
There was another rematch in Orange County’s 39th Congressional District, where Democratic Rep. Gil Cisneros was virtually tied with former GOP Assemblywoman Young Kim.
After losing to Cisneros in 2018 in a race that wasn’t decided until more than a week after the election, Kim edged the incumbent by a single percentage point in the March primary.
Farther south, Democratic Rep. Harley Rouda of Laguna Beach was in a near dead heat with Orange County Supervisor Michelle Steel. Rouda won an easy victory over longtime GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in 2018, and was trying to repeat that win in a district where Republicans hold a registration edge of 5 percentage points.