“I don’t think a message that works for everyone works for the Democratic Party,” said MP Susan Wild (D-Pa.), A frontman who supports Cardenas. “We need to make it more personalized and specific so that people don’t think we’re just throwing out empty words.”
“People who had some difficulty – advertising around socialism or funding the police – didn’t have those beliefs, but after the message about it, it’s hard to overcome the message,” added Cindy Axne (D-Iowa), who also represents swing district and supports Maloney. “I think we all know that it’s hard for Democrats to send a concise message sometimes.”
In the post-Thanksgiving Democratic Leadership Competition, the most watched in the fall, Maloney and Cárdenas will be racing to see what went wrong in the election and how to solve it. He promotes Maloney’s experience as a gay man with a biracial family in a Trump-awarded district in the Lower Hudson Valley. Cárdenas, the leader of the Spanish Caucasus in Congress, has brought his strong fundraising and ability to liaise with Latin voters, some of whom have fled the Democratic Party this year.
The competition is looking for a chaotic soul on the board, while Democrats have publicly radiated long-standing personal and ideological anger while sparing why they lost 11 incumbents when party leaders confidently predicted gains. By the time all the votes are counted in the last house draws, which have not been decided in 2020, Republicans will be somewhere between five and nine seats from regaining the majority.
The GOP is already embarking on the next election cycle in a command position – the party ruling the White House typically loses seats in the next half. And in 2022, Republicans will also be in their district. Many large states are in control of the mapping process, enhancing the recovery of the majority.
Both Maloney and Cárdenas have received the most restrained criticism of DCCC current president Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) And campaign faculty tactics during the 2020 cycle. Bustos has decided not to seek a second term during the internal repercussions of the Democrats ’poor appearance in the election.
Maloney stressed he was doing an autopsy he did in 2016 – after Democrats had only won six home seats despite forecasting much higher profits – and says he can’t pinpoint wider problems until more data is available. The New York Democrat, who returned to Congress for his fifth term, refused to detail the content of the review, which was closely guarded by the committee. And he would say little about any possible messaging or mechanical failure that could have contributed to the losses.
“People really feel that we need to delve into what happened because there is obviously a debate in the House of Representatives about the reasons for that,” Maloney said. “I like to say, ‘If you’re not God, bring data’ … I can find out what happened because I’ve done it before.”
Continuing his fifth term, Cárdenas blamed the losses on a combination of factors, including both messaging and a lack of pandemic mobility. But he also stressed that he will build a more inclusive group.
“We need the president of the DCCC from day one, who commits everything in a transparent way, that is, inclusive,” Cárdenas said. “If someone is the president of something, it is not his organization. But this person has been entrusted with making sure that the organization is functioning properly and effectively. ”
Both contestants tried to win over the swing-district Democrats, whose seats will be critical to keeping the majority of the house in two years. So far, several of these so-called cutting-edge Democrats have supported Maloney, claiming he can win in a tough Trump district. (Maloney’s meeting will be redrawn in the next cycle, which he predicts will get a safer place in 2022.)
But not all vulnerable Democrats have been left behind, and some say none of the candidates will inspire them, fearing that Maloney will not be independent enough of Pelos and the leading team and that Cardenas has no experience in GOP-bending districts. Many of the surviving Democrats felt intense panic after many of their colleagues were defeated earlier this month and feared that top Democrats would be unwilling to anticipate the campaign arm’s message and tactics before the medium term.
Some centrists, like Wild, say Cárdenas could help the DCCC in its deep struggles to win Latin voters. The House Democrats had three of the most surprising losses in 2020 in the Latin American districts of South Florida and Orange County in California – a cause for concern that the party treats these voters as monoliths.
Cárdenas also confirmed his 2020 record by bringing in $ 15 million in this cycle to the BOLD PAC, a political branch of the CHC, more than doubling the value from two cycles ago.
In addition to the moderates, the new DCCC leader should also be given the task of sorting out the precarious relationship between the committee and prominent advanced ones. The left has been at war with Bustos throughout the cycle over a new DCCC policy that blackmails campaign advisers working with candidates who face primary challenges against seated members. The most advanced reached a cell at the DCCC earlier this year, but this meant postponing the conflict at best.
Cárdenas said he would reverse the policy of a “blacklist” that would ban any consultants who worked on a primary challenge and would instead evaluate sellers on a case-by-case basis. Maloney said he was re-evaluating the ban, noting that it had “unintended consequences”.
In the days since the election, there has been more tension between the DCCC and the progressives. In particular, MP Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) targeted the DCCC and mitigated what he considered to be a weak digital strategy. The moderates offered their own sharp refutations, both on Twitter and in closed session.
Cárdenas said he approached Ocasio-Cortez shortly after he came to the public with his criticism of the DCCC and noted that he had worked with him as head of the BOLD PAC.
“I know what it’s like to be in a big family where we argue or disagree,” Cárdenas added, noting that he is the youngest of 11 siblings. “But at the same time, we’re here to make sure we do the work of the American people, and the best way to do that is to make sure we’re in the majority.”
Even if the incoming leader of the campaign team concludes an armed ceasefire against the progressive in the next cycle, the problem of democratic primary challengers will not go away. Progressors had no sign of retreating from the primary struggles – which split three incumbents in this cycle alone, including Eliot Engel, who is in office for 16 cycles and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Despite their complaints about the Commission’s strategy, the advanced did not offer their own candidate in the DCCC competition.
Maloney also seemed reluctant to ease the tension with the House’s loudest advocates, praising the ability to digitally organize, though it didn’t say exactly how it would work.
“I think what you find is neither.” Everyone makes good points based on their experience in their own districts. Maloney said. “It is my job to integrate these into a common understanding of what is happening and a new battle plan for victory.”
But not all House Democrats say it is the job of the DCCC president to bridge ideological factions within the election for the next two years.
“The DCCC is truly an operational role. In some ways, it’s dangerous to try to be a really popular DCCC president, ”said MP Dan Kildee (D-Mich.). “It’s not about popularity, you have to make really hard decisions.”
