Caucus leaders have been laying groundwork to transform onetime ‘informal coalition’ into political force if Democrats reclaim the House

If Democrats reclaim the House on Tuesday night, the progressives in their midst are planning for anything but politics as usual on Capitol Hill.

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Leaders of the House Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) have been laying the groundwork to transform what was described as a one-time “social club” and an “informal coalition” into a more powerful political force pushing the party to the left.

“We’ve always had the largest membership within the Democratic caucus, but we kind of had skinny, weak arms,” said CPC chairman Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin. “We didn’t have the muscle to flex because we didn’t have a structure to do that.”

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The CPC, which was established by then congressman, now senator Bernie Sanders in response to the rise of liberal centrism in the early 1990s, has 78 members and currently represents more than one-third of the House Democratic caucus. Yet despite a large membership, the caucus has struggled in the past to leverage its numbers in a meaningful way.

Pocan said the caucus has become “more sophisticated and more hungry” in recent years. And next year, he predicts, the CPC will be “in a position to be a much more powerful entity” – a posture that could invite high-profile clashes with Democratic leadership.

His caucus will compete for influence with an equally ambitious coalition of moderate Democrats. The groups are already armed with dueling analyses of how the House majority may be won.

Moderates argue that a Democratic takeover will come from left-of-center candidates in Republican-leaning and conservative districts – not economic populists in the solidly liberal corners of the country. Progressive are making the case that a majority of the Democrats in competitive House races are running on at least one of plank of their economic platform and that their ideas can resonate in conservative America.

We’ve always had the largest membership within the Democratic caucus, but we kind of had skinny, weak arms Mark Pocan, CPC chairman

This election cycle, CPC’s political action committee endorsed 41 candidates and raised $1.6m, more than five times as much money as it raised in 2016. And if the Democrats win the House on Tuesday, CPC members are in position to chair 13 committees, with more than two dozen ready to be sub-committee chairs. They also have a number of members running for leadership positions next year.

But the centerpiece of their effort to build support for an economic populist agenda is the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center, a clearinghouse for policy development, research and messaging . Though not yet fully operational, its goal is to coordinate between outside liberal organizations and congressional members to promote a shared policy vision as the Democratic party debates its future ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

With nearly a dozen prospective 2020 candidates jockeying for the progressive mantle, including senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, Pocan said the center will help “shape the priorities and policy initiatives” they run on.

Meanwhile, progressive House leaders are strategizing ways to sharpen their brand and strengthen their clout in anticipation of a more ideologically liberal freshman class sweeping in on the back of their midterms success – they hope. After Tuesday, the CPC expects to add as many as a dozen members to its ranks, including prominent insurgents such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.

While much of the conversation hinges on the outcome of the midterm elections, some items under consideration, according to members and aides, include pushing members to refuse contributions from corporate donors; securing more chairmanships and plum committee posts; and voting as a bloc on certain issues.

Privately some progressives are skeptical that a caucus of its size can be corralled to vote as a bloc and believe the formation of a “sub-caucus” is inevitable. The idea of building a progressive “sub-caucus”, floated by Ocasio-Cortez in an interview earlier this year, would mirror the Freedom Caucus, which was formed by conservative hardliners within the Tea Party movement that upended Republican politics.

Pocan acknowledged that some members may choose to band together but he challenged any comparison to the intractable Freedom Caucus.

“The Tea Party became the caucus of ‘no’. We are just the opposite,” he said. “A lot of our ideas are bills we proactively want to pass.”

That includes working with House Democratic leadership – should the party prevail – on infrastructure investment, prescription drugs pricing and ethics reforms, at the outset.

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Many of these discussions will begin in earnest next week, when the caucus plans to host its first orientation for prospective new members. It will partner with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and Indivisible, a network of liberal activists that formed after Trump’s election.

“The goal is to solidify the caucus early as a political force,” said Adam Green, the cofounder of the PCCC. He said the orientation is a sign of the caucus’ increasing “assertiveness”.

Rashida Tlaib, a Democratic congressional nominee in Michigan who intends to join the CPC if she wins on Tuesday, is optimistic that the number of progressive freshman elected to Congress on Tuesday will send a clear message to the party’s leaders in Washington.

“The fact that there’s going to be so many more of us progressives in Congress, I think, will organically move the agenda forward,” Tlaib said. “I don’t think we are going to have to twist arms.”