Centrist Democrats talk leadership changes after negative election results
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/524503-centrist-democrats-talk-leadership-changes-after-negative-election-resultsStung by their party’s dispiriting showing at the polls Tuesday, two moderate House Democrats say they and other centrists are privately discussing a plan that was unthinkable just 24 hours earlier: throwing their support behind a challenger to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
The two Democrats told The Hill on Wednesday that they were reaching out to their colleagues about backing one of Pelosi’s top lieutenants, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), for Speaker in the next Congress.
“He’s the only one prepared and positioned” to be Speaker, said one of the Democratic lawmakers. “He bridges moderates and progressives better than anyone. And most importantly, he’s not Nancy Pelosi.”
The idea was immediately shot down by Jeffries, who says he's focused on keeping his current spot. Yet the grumbling reflects a remarkable shift in internal Democratic thinking in the immediate wake of Tuesday’s elections.
There was no blue wave. Instead the Democrats lost more and Republicans gained.
A Biden triumph would bring a jolt to disheartened rank-and-file members, while providing some measure of vindication for Pelosi's election-year strategy. Still, the early results in the House have been nothing shy of a profound disappointment for Democrats who'd entered the week hoping that a resounding blue wave would be a repudiation of Trump.
While Democrats will keep their majority and many races remain undecided, the party suffered the defeat of at least seven front-line members — the sitting lawmakers in the toughest districts. And the spate of Democratic losses were not limited to any one geographic region.
In rural Minnesota, Rep. Collin Peterson (D), a 15-term veteran and chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, was clobbered by the state’s former lieutenant governor, who linked him to Pelosi.
In the suburbs of Oklahoma City, Rep. Kendra Horn (D), a first-term moderate, was defeated by Republican Stephanie Bice, a state senator, in one of the country’s most contested races.
On New Mexico’s southern border, Rep. Xochitl Torres Small (D), a 36-year-old centrist also in her first term, fell to Yvette Herrell, a former state legislator, in a rematch of 2018.
And in South Florida, Rep. Donna Shalala (Fla.), former health secretary under President Clinton, fell to a former broadcast journalist, Maria Elvira Salazar, whom Shalala had defeated two years ago.
Many Republicans made gains.
At the time, some moderate Democrats balked at supporting the San Francisco liberal, fearing reprisal in their battleground districts. Others, largely of a younger generation and itching to climb up the leadership ladder, thought it was simply time for Pelosi and her top lieutenants to pass the torch to a fresh crop of leaders.
Still, Pelosi methodically picked up support from her detractors, who failed to field a challenger, and she won accolades from all spectrums of the caucus over the cycle, which included the historic impeachment of President Trump and Congress’s emergency response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Fifteen Democrats bucked Pelosi and voted against her on the House floor after that 2018 fight. But she still secured 220 votes — two more than what she needed to win the Speaker’s gavel.
There is a schism in the Democratic party.