“Time to stop rehashing 2016 and talk about the future”, Moulton tweeted on Tuesday night.
Advertisement
But after Republican Karen Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff on Tuesday, that narrative quickly changed.
In South Carolina, the GOP similarly took pains to link Parnell and Pelosi – even as Parnell campaigned with Tim Ryan, the OH congressman who challenged Pelosi for minority leadership in November.
That followed another recent Democratic disappointment in Montana, where the Republican candidate won even after last-minute assault charges, and an earlier loss for the Democrats in Kansas. The Carolina outcome was closer than in Georgia but drew little national attention.
Handel’s tough race, combined with closer-than-usual GOP House victories in Kansas, Montana and SC, suggests Trump will dominate the coming election cycle, forcing Republicans to make peace with him, for better or worse. While Ryan praised the ongoing investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, he argued that doubt in Trump’s leadership is not enough to flip seats in Congress.
Pelosi said she didn’t want to hear Republicans “all of a sudden be sanctimonious” as if they had “never seen such a thing before”. “You wanna win? You gotta move into the district!'”
“I think you’d have to be an idiot to think we could win the House with Pelosi at the top”, said Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas), who supported Pelosi in her last leadership race.
Wednesday, Pelosi stressed that now was the time for Democrats to come together.
Handel’s tough race, combined with closer-than-usual GOP House victories in Kansas, Montana and SC, suggests Trump will dominate the coming election cycle, forcing Republicans to make peace with him, for better or worse.
In South Carolina, Republican Ralph Norman beat Democrat Archie Parnell in a special election to replace Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. “And I’m not sure that that’s there yet”.
Senator Chris Murphy of CT told MSNBC that Democrats needed to focus on economic growth and “get back to being a big tent party”. Debbie Dingell of MI. She noted last week’s shooting of Republican Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana and said politics has become too embittered.
Whether it’s cultural arrogance, uninspirational policies or lousy candidates, Americans have been choosing Republicans to represent their districts over Democrats-despite the fact that members of the GOP are routinely mocked and laughed at in the mainstream media and on late-night television programs.
The apparent effectiveness of that messaging suggested to some that the 77-year-old Californian could be a liability for Democrats as they aim to regain their majority. If Republicans believed healthcare could be a political victor or even remotely palatable to the general public, they would have been all over messaging this race.
Congressman Bill Pascrell of New Jersey says, “A loss is a loss is a loss, and there’s no excuses”.
And Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat, remarked that “we had no business winning those districts” due to their GOP allegiance.
Advertisement
Unfortunately for those Democrats, says Brad Gomez, associate professor of political science at Florida State University and the co-author of a 2007 study on the weather’s impact on presidential elections, they can’t explain away Ossoff’s loss so easily.
