If Democrats narrowly lose the House they have only themselves to blame.

[Hammy]

I just do not understand why we can't win D+8 seats in places like California and Oregon. I mean it's unacceptable for Young Kim to defeat a Democratic incumbent on the same day that Biden heavily carried the district. I firmly believe that the Dems seriously need to Fox Newsify their base for this reason.

This is maybe the worst idea I've heard in terms of having a healthy democracy

Our democracy is already terminally ill at this point, this is really the only way to extend it's life.

[kwabbit]

I just do not understand why we can't win D+8 seats in places like California and Oregon. I mean it's unacceptable for Young Kim to defeat a Democratic incumbent on the same day that Biden heavily carried the district. I firmly believe that the Dems seriously need to Fox Newsify their base for this reason.

These voters are Republicans who happened to vote for Biden, not Democrats who happened to vote for Young Kim. Democrats have struggled to consolidate their gains in SoCal because there are counter trends blunting their gains. It’s not like suburban Texas or Atlanta; these areas aren’t experiencing that rapid of a demographic change. There’s a large Hispanic population, a large Asian population (much of which is communist diaspora), a very small Black population, and a White population that is more religious and less libertine than one would expect for an affluent coastal area.

In Atlanta/DFW the rapid influx of new voters reduces ticket splitting. There’s less migration into SoCal, so the electorate in OC that voted for Romney by 10 is a lot more intact than the electorate in Cobb that voted for Romney by 10. Thus the GOP can make some gains with non-Whites to blunt Dem gains with Whites, but there’s no demographic change continuously growing the Democratic base.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

There is a war in Ukraine, a border Crisis, 7 percent inflation and we have 30 T that was largely spent on the Cares act that gave us stimulus checks and 400 in extra unemployment and Trump or Biden didn't raise taxes and Rs refuse to raise taxes and we have 8 T in Defense spending and 3 T in tax cuts that Bush W or Trump passed

Whomever is the Prez they get blamed for the deficits it was only cut during the Clinton administration and Bush S pushed large tax cuts, and most of it went to the wealthy in Corporate taxes cuts and Capital Gains, some middle class don't want 401K taxed but they take out SSA if we don't raise the cap by 1035 SSA is going Nan go insolvent, due to Gen Z outliving out Boomer parents we can live there 90 where our parents lived to 70

When SSA goes bankrupt in 2035 there won't be anymore tax cuts that Rs can lower akyways

[Bojack Horseman]

I just do not understand why we can't win D+8 seats in places like California and Oregon. I mean it's unacceptable for Young Kim to defeat a Democratic incumbent on the same day that Biden heavily carried the district. I firmly believe that the Dems seriously need to Fox Newsify their base for this reason.

Yep.  No incumbent should be losing when their party’s nominee for President is winning the district/state.  This was the most annoying part of the 2020 election. 

Had Dem incumbents held onto their Biden seats in FL-27, CA-21, CA-39, CA-48 in 2020, they would have held 226 seats in this last congress (rather than 222) and all of those incumbents (except Shalala in FL-27) would have won this year.  That would have given Dems three more seats after this election and potentially the majority.  Dems need to do a better job making sure their Presidential voters vote Dem down the ticket.

We need to demonize the opposition and get it through voters' heads that no matter how much your local Republican pretends to be moderate on TV, they're all the same. I mean look at the IRA, which not a single Republican voted for whether they were the Freedom Caucus or from a D+27 district in California. You also have the clueless swing voters like the one woman from Pittsburgh mentioned on Atlas a few weeks ago who voted for Shapiro for governor and Oz for Senate jUsT tO sWiTcH iT uP.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I just do not understand why we can't win D+8 seats in places like California and Oregon. I mean it's unacceptable for Young Kim to defeat a Democratic incumbent on the same day that Biden heavily carried the district. I firmly believe that the Dems seriously need to Fox Newsify their base for this reason.

Those seats aren’t D+8 as those seats are fundamentally less democratic in non presidential races .

[The Arizonan]

Just to be clear, I am a Democrat who want Democrats to ideally hold all 3 Chambers of congress and possibly make gains. However, I worry Dems may fail to take a look in the mirror if the lose the US House because there were several errors they made around the margins that could def cost them.

1. Playing the Gerrymandering Game very poor. The classic example would be New York vs Florida. In New York, Democrat's gerrymander was extremely messy due to incumbent demands, and that is arguably the main reason it got struck down, not the partisan lopsidedness. Districts on their previous map such as NY-10 and NY-17 were absolutely absurd whereas in DeSantis's map, the districts are far cleaner and make geographic sense, even if it results in a lopsided map. There were so many ways Democrats could've passed cleaner gerrymanders in NY and MD that would've had a very good chance of passing legal muster, if only they hadn't heeded to frankly absurd incumbent demands.

Furthermore, some of the people they nominated for redistricting commissions in states such as Colorado and Arizona were quite toxic. In Arizona, it quickly became clear the main Dem and the tiebreaker really began to dislike eachother after the Dems didn't get the map they wanted to and so they basically gave up on seriously trying to make districts like AZ-01 or AZ-06 bluer and basically allowed a Republican gerrymander lite to pass.

2. Nancy Pelosi. and leadership generally. I get she's effective at courting votes but she's a huge lightning rod for Dems, a terrible messenger, and a generally unpopular figure. Republicans are much better at turning over leadership a bit ironically and tend to nominate younger more charismatic voices to lead their caucus. I think people like Nancy Pelosi can be very isolating to a large chunk of the population too since she literally is Rs defintion of the liberal elite which seems to be a huge point of attack against Dems.

3. Spending heavily favors incumbent House Dems even though if Dems want to maintain control, they'll probably need to pick up a few competitive seats (since redistricting costs them a few and not all incumbents in seemingly competitive races will ultimately survive). The lack of Dem investment in seats such as AZ-01, NY-22, and NM-02 is really upsetting even though I'd argue all 3 of those seats could be decisive.

The one thing I do give Dems credit for is overall their slate of candidates in swing seats, both incumbents and newcomers, is quite strong with a few notable exceptions (Christy Smith). No matter what you're never gonna get a perfect slate of A tier recruits for every competitive House seat, but there aren't really many potentially competitive races they outright threw away because of a bad recruit, especially when compared to Rs.

I feel like too often Dems let the internal power structure of their party and trying to protect incumbents/leadership or whatever costs them in terms of raw electoral results around the edges, and as someone who wants the Democrats in charge of the House, I find it frustrating. I really hope some inside the Democratic Party begin to realize this and can possibly adjust their messenging, strategies, and optics accordingly.

Well, here we are.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

52/48,DS
  
218/217 DH

AL 2,0XA 27/41, CO 9,  NY 3/17/19, VA 2, we don't need FL or TX

[ProgressiveModerate]

Just to be clear, I am a Democrat who want Democrats to ideally hold all 3 Chambers of congress and possibly make gains. However, I worry Dems may fail to take a look in the mirror if the lose the US House because there were several errors they made around the margins that could def cost them.

1. Playing the Gerrymandering Game very poor. The classic example would be New York vs Florida. In New York, Democrat's gerrymander was extremely messy due to incumbent demands, and that is arguably the main reason it got struck down, not the partisan lopsidedness. Districts on their previous map such as NY-10 and NY-17 were absolutely absurd whereas in DeSantis's map, the districts are far cleaner and make geographic sense, even if it results in a lopsided map. There were so many ways Democrats could've passed cleaner gerrymanders in NY and MD that would've had a very good chance of passing legal muster, if only they hadn't heeded to frankly absurd incumbent demands.

Furthermore, some of the people they nominated for redistricting commissions in states such as Colorado and Arizona were quite toxic. In Arizona, it quickly became clear the main Dem and the tiebreaker really began to dislike eachother after the Dems didn't get the map they wanted to and so they basically gave up on seriously trying to make districts like AZ-01 or AZ-06 bluer and basically allowed a Republican gerrymander lite to pass.

2. Nancy Pelosi. and leadership generally. I get she's effective at courting votes but she's a huge lightning rod for Dems, a terrible messenger, and a generally unpopular figure. Republicans are much better at turning over leadership a bit ironically and tend to nominate younger more charismatic voices to lead their caucus. I think people like Nancy Pelosi can be very isolating to a large chunk of the population too since she literally is Rs defintion of the liberal elite which seems to be a huge point of attack against Dems.

3. Spending heavily favors incumbent House Dems even though if Dems want to maintain control, they'll probably need to pick up a few competitive seats (since redistricting costs them a few and not all incumbents in seemingly competitive races will ultimately survive). The lack of Dem investment in seats such as AZ-01, NY-22, and NM-02 is really upsetting even though I'd argue all 3 of those seats could be decisive.

The one thing I do give Dems credit for is overall their slate of candidates in swing seats, both incumbents and newcomers, is quite strong with a few notable exceptions (Christy Smith). No matter what you're never gonna get a perfect slate of A tier recruits for every competitive House seat, but there aren't really many potentially competitive races they outright threw away because of a bad recruit, especially when compared to Rs.

I feel like too often Dems let the internal power structure of their party and trying to protect incumbents/leadership or whatever costs them in terms of raw electoral results around the edges, and as someone who wants the Democrats in charge of the House, I find it frustrating. I really hope some inside the Democratic Party begin to realize this and can possibly adjust their messenging, strategies, and optics accordingly.

Well, here we are.

Yep, though I haven't rlly seen Democrats or even rlly the pundit class take these lessons away from 2022, probably because the main narrative was just that Dems overperformed. Still I think the close 2022 results in seats like AZ-01, AZ-06, CA-41, and CA-45 will encourage Dems to take those races more seriously in 2024.

I still worry they'll punt on seats like NY-01, CA-40, and CA-27 just because the 2022 results were disappointing, however, I'd argue the reason they were disappointing was largely cause Dems didn't take them seriously. This better not become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I also worry about the Senate and that they won't take AZ-Sen or TX-Sen seriously in favor of incumbent Dems. I still think MT-Sen and OH-Sen are both good investments, but there's a good chance TX is seat 50 for Dems imo, and it'd suck to narrowly lose it (and the Senate) because Dems spending was mostly towards protecting incumbents.