Story highlights Rep. Tim Ryan said Democrats should have driven a "deeply economic" message

Ryan is challenging Nancy Pelosi to lead Democrats in the House

Washington (CNN) Rep. Tim Ryan, the Ohio Democrat challenging Nancy Pelosi for the party's House leadership, faulted the House minority leader on Sunday for focusing too narrowly on issues such as Zika virus funding in the lead-up to the election.

"We were talking a lot about issues that weren't deeply economic, and I think that provided a huge opening for Donald Trump to come in, and that led to the disaster that happened on Tuesday," Ryan said in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union."

He pointed out that a month before Congress left Washington to hit the campaign trail full time, Democrats were battling for increased funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to fight the Zika virus.

"That's not a deep economic message that's a national message; that's a message in a couple (of) regions in the country. And I think things like that throw us off track," Ryan said.

"We need a brand as a party that says, we are the party that is going to help working-class people -- white people, black people, brown people, gay people, straight people; improve opportunity for them to grow their wages, to have security, economic security," he said. "We got off that message, and when we don't talk about economics, we lose elections."

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