Story highlights House Democrats met for a retreat in Baltimore this week

They discussing new strategies to win at least 24 seats in the midterms

(CNN) House Democrats are scrapping their playbook -- with plans to fire pollsters, hire new staff and ditch the very tools they used to decide where they fight against Republicans -- as they search for a way to win back the House of Representatives in two years.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a New York Democrat who is leading an internal review of the Democrats' campaign strategy, and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, the chair of House Democrats' campaign arm, told Democrats they need to drop their old way of doing business.

"We should understand the reality of the new battlefield and we should talk about things that matter to ordinary Americans and if we do both, we will write a new chapter," Maloney told CNN Thursday.

Part of that review means dropping some of their basic ideas of what wins them races and dropping some of the strategies that hurt them just a few months ago, when Donald Trump won an upset victory for the White House and Republicans maintained control of both chambers of Congress.

"You're talking to a gay guy with an interracial family in a Trump district," Maloney said. "I live this tension every day."

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