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After indecisive results last week, two Georgia races that will decide the fate of the Senate are headed to runoffs in January. POLITICOs Elena Schneider breaks down how both parties plan to win and how Trumps refusal to concede could shape the campaigns.

Rodriguez noted that the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee was on target to spend $50 million on their Flip Everything campaign aimed at state legislatures. In a valiant effort to put on a happy face, she said, The spin that we've seen now is Democrats saying, 'Well, you can't lose something you didn't have,' but they did lose a lot of money in the process to have this showing in 2020.

Beyond desperate spin, Mutnick identified a few more genuine grounds for modest optimism among Democrats about the decennial redistricting process. One is the trend toward less partisan redistricting, as was evidenced in Virginia by voters backing a referendum to turn the process over to an independent commission.

Since long-term demographic changes generally favor Democrats, they will likely do fine in any process that isnt nakedly partisan (though some Democrats in Virginia, where the Legislature is now Democratic, were looking forward to doing unto others as was previously done unto to them.) Also, Mutnick said, Democrats have generally gained when courts have intervened in redistrictings: I think its possible that we have more court-drawn maps this cycle than we did in 2010.

One welcome victim of the 2020 elections: The overly simplistic assumption that Hispanic voters can be lumped for political purposes in a mostly predictable bloc.

I think the first thing is we need to rethink what is the Latino vote, because Cubans in Miami don't have the same interests as Mexican Americans in Arizona, don't have the same interests as Puerto Ricans in central Florida, Rodriguez said. While Hispanics plainly helped shift Arizona at the presidential level in Democrat Joe Bidens favor, it is also clear that Trumps anti-socialism message resonated with many voters beyond Cuban Americans in South Florida.

Long term, Rodriguez and Rayasam agreed, is much more targeted and locally oriented appeals to Hispanic voters by both parties, and an understanding by Democrats especially that they cant be taken for granted.

Each panelist also identified a person, or an idea, that we will be hearing more of in the years ahead.

Mutnicks idea was litigation, and the person shell be watching is Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, who was general counsel to Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign. The 51-year-old Elias has taken the lead on challenging maps that Democrats argue are drawn with the aim of diluting the power of progressive voters, including minorities.

His knowledge of election law is profound, Mutnick said. And he's dedicated to helping achieve what Democrats feel to be fair maps. So to the extent that he can pursue that legal avenue throughout the next decade, that's going to be huge in different states for Democrats and getting maps that are more favorable to them.

Dixon sees in Tallahassee a Florida version of the progressive vs. establishment battles that have played out in Washington. The equivalent there of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is an Orlando-area state representative named Anna Eskamani, a 30-year-old Iranian American.

She's very progressive, kind of goes after her own party on Twitter, is kind of expected to at least consider running for governor in 2022 even though she's relatively young, Dixon said. She's become a force within the progressive side of the Florida Democratic Party. And I would suspect that it's going to be a name that gets a little more national attention within the next year or two, especially going into the 2022 cycle where she's expected to try to try to make some noise.

For her part, Rayasam sees Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who is widely expected to run and win reelection in 2022, as having some national potential. He has won both his governors races by huge margins, she notes. He's pretty popular here. There hasn't been a Democrat that's been able to really even touch or get close to him. And I think we're going to see I'm curious to see what he does with his popularity here in Texas, whether he translates that into national ambitions.

Rodriguez closed the conversation with what may be the safest bet: Continued interest in shaping state politics, as the narrow balance of power at the national level raises the stakes everywhere. Politics and money at the state level is the long-term trend to watch, Rodriguez said. I think there's a recognition that to make inroads at the national level, you've got to look down the ballot.

As progressive groups finish licking wounds from 2020, many will likely regroup for a new battle, Rodriguez said: I think a lot of these organizations are going to try and do what they didn't accomplish this year.

The rest is here:
The election-night fiasco in the states that will haunt Democrats for a decade - POLITICO

Joe Biden secured a historic presidential victory on Saturday yet some Democrats have spent the tense days since the election engulfed in recriminations, finger-pointing and infighting as they sift through the aftermath of expectations of a blue wave that never crested.

Long-simmering tensions between moderate Democrats who represent conservative districts and progressives who have massive online followings erupted into public view, after a series of unexpected losses in parts of the country where the president proved surprisingly resilient.

Once united behind the shared priority of removing Donald Trump from office, swaths of Democrats are now racked with anxiety and uncertainty over a path forward.

Moderates accused liberals of embracing socialism and supporting leftwing proposals to defund the police, which Republicans weaponized against vulnerable Democrats. Progressives argue that the base powered many of the partys biggest victories and that it was the lack of an inspiring message and not their politics that hurt members. Meanwhile, Democrats were alarmed by Trumps apparent success with Hispanic voters in some battleground states.

In the weeks before the election, Democrats had begun to imagine the legislative agenda their party could deliver with an undivided Congress and a new Biden administration. House Democrats anticipated expanding their majority by a significant margin potentially even double digits. In the Senate, Democratic challengers, fueled by a historic wave of donations, appeared poised to knock off enough Republican incumbents to take the gavel from Mitch McConnell, even in states such as Iowa and South Carolina where Democrats rarely win statewide.

As Democrats engage in what has become a ritualistic practice of soul-searching, there are unlikely to be any easy answers. The election delivered a mix of successes and disappointments for both parties, raising complex questions about their coalition and their message.

For now, Democratic leaders are trying to keep the focus on their victories Biden defeated Donald Trump, they will retain their majority in the House and control of the Senate will be decided by a pair of runoff elections in Georgia in January.

This has been a lifeordeath fight for the fate of our democracy, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told reporters on Friday, with tens of thousands of votes still uncounted. We did not win every battle in the House, but we did win the war.

Tensions came to a head during a private conference call with House Democrats on Thursday, part of which was made public by the Washington Post, when the congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, a freshman who narrowly held on to her seat in a conservative-leading Virginia district, accused her liberal colleagues of costing the party seats by referring to themselves as socialists.

If we are classifying Tuesday as a success, she added, using an expletive, the party will get torn apart in 2022.

Republicans struggled to portray Biden, whose reputation as centrist, bipartisan dealmaker was forged over the course of his decades-long political career, as a captive of the radical left. But there was evidence the attacks were more effective on Senate and House candidates, particularly those running in a forbidding environment.

Moderates have pointed to Nebraskas 2nd congressional district, which Biden flipped but where Democratic candidate Kara Eastman, a progressive who supported Medicare for All, lost.

The whole progressivism is bad argument just doesnt have any compelling evidence that Ive seen, the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who identifies as a democratic socialist, wrote on Twitter. She added that such attacks by Republicans are about racial resentment and youre not gonna make that go away.

Progressives not only won re-election but expanded their ranks in blue districts across the country. Members of the so-called Squad, including Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, sailed to victory on Tuesday. They will be joined in the House by newcomers Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri.

They argue that Democrats political future depends on organizing and mobilizing young people and people of color who increasingly make up the partys base.

This election, they say, relied on liberal organizing in Georgia, led by Black women like Stacey Abrams, who was among the women Biden considered as a potential running mate, and in Arizona, led by young Latinos activists, helped give Biden a narrow but decisive edge in both states. And in Florida, voters approved a $15 minimum wage even though they elected Trump, who roundly rejected the proposal.

At the same time, centrists argue that Democrats shift to the left since Trumps election has alienated moderate and independents voters who the party must attract if it hopes to win in rural and exurban parts of the country.

Weve got to get back to the meat and potatoes issues and the issues where were taking care of their families, and we also need to stop acting like were smarter than everybody else, because were not, the former Missouri senator Claire McCaskill said in an interview on MSNBC.

McCaskill, who lost her bid for re-election in 2018, said that Democrats had been too narrowly focused on social issues such as gun control, abortion and rights for LGBTQ+ Americans and other people who we as a party, quote, unquote, look after.

As we circled the issues, we left some voters behind and Republicans dove in with a vengeance and grabbed those voters, she said.

The remark drew sharp rebukes from progressive Democrats and McCaskill later apologized for her language. But her broader point remains the source of deep division: how do Democrats gain power in an electoral system that is increasingly representative of a white minority over a diverse majority?

Another troubling sign for Democrats was a dip in support that they received from Latinos in Florida and parts of Texas. Yet in Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Georgia, Latinos, particularly young activists and women, were likely critical to Democratic successes.

It was all the more surprising for Democrats, since Trump frequently scapegoated migrants and began his 2016 campaign calling some Mexican immigrants are rapists. But ahead of the election, Latino strategists and pollsters warned that antipathy to Trump was not enough and that Democrats needed to invest more deeply in outreach to this increasingly complex and diverse electorate.

In 2020, Latino voters, more than anything else, chose each other, Marisa Franco, the executive director of Mijente, a progressive Latino civil rights group, said in a statement. The Biden campaign may have chosen not to spend time in working-class, immigrant and people of color neighborhoods but that is exactly where his victory is coming from and where the solutions hell need to champion will have to start.

In brief remarks on Friday night, Biden sought to dispel any notion that the outcome undercut his governing agenda.

What is becoming clearer each hour is that record numbers of Americans from all races, faiths, religions chose change over more of the same, he said. They have given us a mandate for action on Covid and the economy and climate change and systemic racism.

Bernie Sanders, the progressive leader who worked aggressively to elect Biden, said in a conversation with the Squad that progressives must now work to make sure that Biden becomes the most progressive president since FDR.

Read more:
Democrats left to sift through aftermath of blue wave that never crested - The Guardian

Ever since President Trump won the White House in 2016, a shocked Democratic Party had been united behind the mission of defeating him. Four years later, with the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr., the divides that have long simmered among Democrats are now beginning to burst into the open, as the president-elect confronts deep generational and ideological differences among congressional lawmakers, activists and the partys grass-roots base.

The fault lines began to emerge within hours of Mr. Bidens victory. Moderates argued that his success, particularly in industrial Midwestern states that Mr. Trump seized from the Democrats in 2016, was proof that a candidate who resisted progressive litmus tests was best positioned to win back voters who had abandoned the Democratic Party. Those tests included single-payer health care, aggressive measures to combat climate change and expanding the Supreme Court.

The progressives said we need a base candidate, said Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago and White House chief of staff under President Barack Obama, referring to a nominee who appeals to the left wing of the party. No we didnt. We needed someone to get swing voters. If you campaign appropriately, you can make that a governing transformation.

Moderate Democrats said they were hopeful the urgency of the problems confronting the nation would delay the inevitable reckoning the party faces between its ideological wings. Beyond that, they said that a disappointing showing by Democrats in congressional races the party lost seats in the House and faces a struggle for even narrow control of the Senate would give liberal Democrats less of a platform to push Mr. Biden to the left.

After a fiery call among members of the House Democratic caucus, in which some argued that progressives who have entertained ideas like defunding the police or Medicare for all had cost the party congressional seats, some Democratic leaders pushed further away from the left wing.

Representative Conor Lamb, a moderate from Pennsylvania who survived a difficult Republican challenge, said the results should be a wake-up call to the left.

What we heard from a lot of our constituents was that they do not like the Democratic message when it comes to police in Western Pennsylvania, and when it comes to jobs and energy, he said. And that we need to do a lot of work to fix that.

But after four years of pent-up frustration and energy, that may prove unlikely. By every early indication, Mr. Bidens election has emboldened progressive energy, no matter the setbacks in the congressional races. There is an up-and-coming generation of elected Democratic officials who have been waiting in the wings, eager to take the lead in formulating a platform for the party.

After supporting Mr. Biden as a means of defeating Mr. Trump, younger and more progressive Democrats who have gained a foothold in Congress and among party activists are skeptical about his future administration. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, setting policy terms in a statement after Mr. Biden was declared victorious, said: A Band-Aid approach wont get the job done. We have a mandate for action on bold plans to meet these twin health and economic crises.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a leading voice of the partys left wing, said in a phone interview that the next few weeks would set the tone for how the incoming administration will be received by liberal activists.

I think thats what people are keeping an eye out for: Is this administration going to be actively hostile and try to put in appointments that are going to just squash progressives and organizing? Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. I dont envy the Biden team. Its a very delicate balance. But I think its really important to strike a good one. Because it sends a very, very powerful message on the intention to govern.

The fault lines crystallize the task ahead for Mr. Biden, who has long seen himself as a pragmatic consensus builder rather than a strict ideologue. In addition to the fractures within his party, Mr. Bidens administration will also have to navigate a Republican Senate, unless Democrats wrest two seats in Georgia during closely watched runoff elections in January.

If the party doesnt win those seats, an already divided Washington looks likely to endure.

Some moderate Democratic leaders urged the president-elect to head off any internal conflict by embracing policies both sides can agree on and reaching out to the left.

The first thing I would do if I were Joe Biden is Id propose a $15-an-hour minimum wage, said Edward G. Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania and a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Thats something that both sides agree on. That would be the first action on behalf of President Biden to show there are significant parts of the progressive agenda that need to be acted on.

Given the two Senate runoffs taking place in Georgia contests that will determine whether Mr. Biden will, like Mr. Obama, begin his first term with a unified Washington Mr. Biden might be initially reluctant to embrace positions that could make it easier for Republicans in Georgia to paint Democrats as out-of-touch, radical socialists.

Mr. Biden has made clear he intends for his administrations cabinet to be diverse in race, gender and sexual orientation but a left wing that has become disenchanted with the inherent idea of representation as progress will be looking for concessions of power.

Grass-roots political groups on the left had a dual message for the president-elect: Congratulations and heres a list of demands. Several signaled that they expected Mr. Biden to defer to some demands of progressives, not only by selecting people from that wing of the party for key cabinet positions but also by excluding people with a Wall Street or lobbying background from the administrations hiring process. However, Mr. Bidens flexibility in making cabinet appointments sought by the left will be constrained if the Senate remains in Republican hands.

Jamaal Bowman, a progressive New York Democrat who will be sworn into the next Congress, took the view that Mr. Bidens victory was not an affirmation of moderate ideology, but a testament to a diverse Democratic Party that had embraced the shared goal of defeating an unpopular president. He cited the work during the general election of progressive groups and candidates who opposed Mr. Biden during the Democratic primary, including young climate organizers like the Sunrise Movement and said they should be rewarded.

Nov. 12, 2020, 7:30 p.m. ET

We have to move past the moderate-versus-liberal conversations and start speaking and moving together as a strong party, Mr. Bowman said. We have organizations like the Sunrise Movement and candidates like Jamaal Bowman who have gone out of our way to get Joe Biden elected.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said she expected a long-term fight, particularly given the setbacks for Democrats in the congressional contests. She also cited cabinet appointments as a way to measure Mr. Bidens ideological core.

She said some people, including Mr. Emanuel, should not play a role in the partys future. The former mayor has been floated by some in Mr. Bidens inner circle to lead a department like housing or transportation.

Someone like Rahm Emanuel would be a pretty divisive pick, she said, citing his record as mayor on racial justice and his opposition to teachers unions. And it would signal, I think, a hostile approach to the grass-roots and the progressive wing of the party.

It is unclear what kind of audience progressives will find with Mr. Biden and his administration. Throughout the year, his campaign sought to project unity through measures like a joint task force with supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders, which led a campaign to adopt some of the left wings policy proposals, including plans around college debt. But Mr. Biden stopped short of the biggest ideas, like eliminating the Electoral College or embracing statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

Some leading Democratic Party moderates said they supported many of the ideological goals on the left but, reflecting what has long been a divide between the two wings, urged caution, particularly because of Democratic losses in other races.

We all have to take a deep breath, said Representative Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan, a state that Mr. Trump snatched from Democrats in 2016 but that Mr. Biden won back this year. I know there are going to be people who are pushing for change. Im one of those people who want Medicare for all.

She argued that Democrats needed to be careful not to push away voters whom Mr. Trump won in 2016, or else risk another, similar candidate.

I also know we cant afford to have Donald Trump as president, she said.

But Stanley Greenberg, a Democratic pollster who advised President Bill Clinton when he successfully pushed the party to the center in the 1990s, said Mr. Biden would be able to delay divisive party fights because of the enormity of the crises he faces.

The nature of the pandemic and the economic and health crisis is so deep, he will inherit a mandate of urgency, he said. Unity within the party and unity within the country.

But for some on the left, the pandemic and the resulting economic crisis were reasons to push the administration further not to back off. They cited mistakes made as Mr. Obama began his administration in 2009, when many believed the partys progressive wing was too deferential to the new president in a moment of economic crisis.

I dont think there will be a grace period for Biden, because the country doesnt have time for a grace period, said Heather McGhee, a former president of Demos, a progressive policy and research organization. A million more people in poverty dont have time for a grace period. A racial epidemic and the coronavirus pandemic isnt taking a grace period. As he is declared the winner, he needs to be putting a team in place that can really change Washington.

Nina Turner, a co-chair of Mr. Sanderss 2020 presidential campaign, said she expected progressives to pressure Mr. Bidens transition team and administration from the outset. When asked how open she thought Mr. Biden would be to the left, she said, If the rhetoric thats being used on the campaign trail is any indication, not very open.

Still, she said, things have an amazing way of changing once youre in the office and you get that pressure.

Read the original:
Managing a Divided Democratic Party is a Test for Joe Biden - The New York Times

House Democrats did not have the election they expected.

Decision Desk HQ projected Democrats will keep their majority in the House after calling races for Democratic Reps. Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Tom OHalleran in Arizona, officially bringing their count to 219 seats. Many more races have yet to be called.

Democrats faced unexpectedly stiff competition from Republican candidates in multiple districts. Rather than expanding their majority as many Democrats and nonpartisan forecasters expected, the Democratic margin in the House appears to be shrinking after they first flipped the chamber in 2018.

The story of the night for House Republicans was the success of Republican women candidates. Republicans flipped back six seats as of Wednesday morning, with Democrats only flipping two open seats in North Carolina. More races have yet to be called.

Led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrats were widely expected to retain control of the lower chamber of Congress after they gained the advantage in the 2018 midterms. Pelosi and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Cheri Bustos (D-IL) were projecting confidence going into the night, yet Bustos herself wound up in a much closer battle for reelection.

Democrats controlling at least one chamber is still an important result. With Joe Biden formally becoming president-elect, Democrats will control the House of Representatives and the White House, but the partys chances to take back the Senate come down to two uncertain runoffs in Georgia.

House Democrats saw early losses in Florida, where first-term Democratic Reps. Donna Shalala and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell lost to Republicans after Democrats underperformed with Cuban American voters in Miami-Dade County.

In Oklahomas Fifth Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Kendra Horn lost to Republican challenger Stephanie Bice. In New Mexicos Second Congressional District, vulnerable incumbent Rep. Xochitl Torres Small lost to Republican Yvette Herrell. And in South Carolinas First Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham lost to Republican Nancy Mace.

And even though Democrats invested big in Texas, hoping to replicate early success in 2018, they didnt manage to unseat a single Texas Republican member of the House in 2020. Democrats hung on to the two Texas seats they flipped in 2018, but failed to pick up any additional seats.

House Democrats bright spots of the night mirrored presidential trends. Democrats flipped Georgias Seventh Congressional District from red to blue, mirroring a trend at the presidential level of Biden appearing to perform better than expected in Georgia.

Its too early to say exactly what went wrong for House Democrats, who broadly hoped to comfortably expand their majority. District-level internal party polling had shown Republicans with the potential to lose even more seats in 2020.

Many Republican strategists had resigned themselves to the possibility that their House ranks could decrease. Instead, Republicans were the ones making gains albeit modest enough ones to stay the minority party in the House.

Cook Political Reports House editor Dave Wasserman had some early thoughts on Wednesday: Just like Biden, Democratic congressional candidates suffered losses among Hispanic voters in key races. Democrats had bad nights particularly in Florida and Texas; they lost a couple of incumbents in Florida and didnt defeat a single Republican incumbent in Texas, despite making a massive investment in the state to target 10 districts.

Republicans also learned from their losses in 2018 and recruited top-tier women candidates, who were on a winning streak.

After last night, Republicans are on track to more than double their current count of 13 women, Wasserman wrote.

The one bright spot for Democrats is that first-term women candidates, particularly those from national security backgrounds, largely held their own in competitive races. After sounding the alarm for months that the political environment was closer than the polls showed, Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) won her race on Wednesday. She was joined by fellow Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), Elaine Luria (D-VA) and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA).

These outcomes all elude a clean narrative. Its difficult to say early on how much is based on strategic error, and how much is owed to the bizarre nature of this election year amid a pandemic that significantly hampered Democrats ability to do basic campaigning tasks like door-knocking.

Prior to Tuesday, most Republican strategists were privately resigned to the prospect of a double-digit loss of seats, Wasserman wrote. At this writing, Republicans may be on track to pick up between five and ten seats in the House, ironically about where our expectations started this cycle but certainly not where they ended.

Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who easily fended off her own well-funded challenger, said that many embattled House Democrats failed to invest enough in digital advertising.

Two years after sweeping races across the country, the party now has to figure out what went wrong for their congressional candidates in 2020.

House Democrats have spent the past two years passing bills at a rapid clip, on everything from sweeping anti-corruption reforms to lowering the cost of prescription drugs to a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill. But the vast majority of these bills were dead on arrival in the US Senate. It seems likely this ambitious agenda could continue to be on ice, unless Democrats flip two Georgia Senate runoff races that will be decided in January.

One of the few bipartisan pieces of legislation Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and President Trump were able to agree on was the $2.2 trillion CARES Act at the beginning of the pandemic; a second stimulus package has been held up by partisan bickering. McConnell recently signaled willingness to pass another stimulus package before the end of the year. He called it a top priority for the Senates lame-duck session but was vague on concrete details.

Even on infrastructure one of the few places where there seemed to be bipartisan agreement getting a bill through could be elusive. Should Democrats flip the Senate, Pelosi has provided them a road map.

But its too early to say if they will get to use it.

Update: This piece was updated with recent Decision Desk calls in several key House races.

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Democrats win majority in House, will keep control for two more years - Vox.com

James Clyburn, the House majority whip and Democratic kingmaker who played an outsized role in Joe Bidens successful presidential run, has said the sloganeering of the Black Lives Matter protests and other social justice efforts this summer might have hampered them at the polls.

Clyburn, a Black South Carolina congressman and prominent figure in the civil rights movement, likened the defund the police mantra of certain activists to civil rights efforts in the 1960s, when some public support for the movements objectives was eroded by radical messaging.

Clyburn invoked memories of John Lewis, the civil rights icon who died this year.

I came out very publicly and very forcibly against sloganeering, Clyburn said Sunday on CNNs State of the Union. John Lewis and I were founders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. John and I sat on the House floor and talked about that defund the police slogan, and both of us concluded that it had the possibilities of doing to the Black Lives Matter movement and current movements across the country what Burn, Baby, Burn did to us back in the 1960s, Clyburn said.

Burn, Baby, Burn became a street slogan during the Watts civil unrest of 1965 in Los Angeles, at the time the largest and costliest uprising of the civil rights era.

We lost that movement over that slogan, he said.

He added: We saw the same thing happening here. We cant pick up these things just because it makes a good headline. It sometimes destroys headway.

As an example, Clyburn cited the defeat of South Carolina US Senate hopeful Jaime Harrison, who ended up beaten comprehensively by the incumbent Republican Lindsey Graham in a race many had hoped he would win after he turned a longshot campaign into a real contest.

Jaime Harrison started to plateau when defund the police showed up with a caption on TV, ran across his head, Clyburn said in a separate Sunday appearance on NBCs Meet the Press.

That stuff hurt Jaime. And thats why I spoke out against it a long time ago. Ive always said that these headlines can kill a political effort.

Clyburn also attacked the Democratic partys progressive left wing, members of which have already broken ranks and fired the first shots in a looming battle for the future political direction of the party.

Sometimes I have real problems trying to figure out what progressive means, he said.

Clyburns comments followed a salvo by left-wing rising star Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez who has taken the opposite position, reflecting deep rifts in Bidens victorious party as it prepares to reoccupy the presidency.

In a no-holds-barred, post-election interview with the New York Times, she warned that if the Biden administration does not put progressives in top positions, the party would lose badly in the 2022 midterm elections.

The leftwing New York congresswoman sharply rejected the notion that progressive messaging around the summers anti-racism protests and more radical policies like the Green New Deal had led to the partys loss of congressional seats. She said the party needed to play to its core base of supporters, not reach out to centrists, or soft Republicans.

If the party believes after 94% of Detroit went to Biden, after Black organisers just doubled and tripled turnout down in Georgia, after so many people organised Philadelphia, the signal from the Democratic party is the John Kasich won us this election? I mean, I cant even describe how dangerous that is, she said.

Kasich is a former Republican governor of Ohio who campaigned for Biden, endorsing him as a centrist that moderate Republicans could get behind.

View original post here:
James Clyburn: defund the police slogan may have hurt Democrats at polls - The Guardian