House Democrats chart path back to majority

House Democrats are crafting an election-year message that leaders hope will reverse years of seat loses and help lawmakers connect with independent voters.

At a four-hour session at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill, 16 House lawmakers on the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee strategized Tuesday as to how to improve their party’s chances of winning back the House.


“You can’t just stick a message in an oven, turn it up to 450 degrees and produce a message. It has to be driven by consensus and it has to be driven by empirical data,” Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said. “What runs through all of the polling and all of the intuition is that voters sense that the economy is changing and they want a political party that has solutions to ensure that they are ready for those changes.”

The panels focused on how Democrats should talk about themselves with voters and how to reach independents. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Charmian Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico led a discussion on where Democrats need to target in the 2016 elections.

Congressional Democrats and the White House were broadly criticized in 2014 for failing to present a message the excited moderates and independents. Competitive Senate races largely dominated the conversation but in the House, moderates felt as if the party zeroed in on niche economic issues that rallied only hardcore Democratic voters to the polls, instead of independents and blue-collar, suburban voters.

Israel’s messaging group was born from a desire among Democratic leaders to examine how they could stop the bleeding and create a unified message for House Democrats. He said members focused on retirement and education.

“We’re going to build our message on a foundation of Republicans who continue to work for special interests and Democrats who are focused on hardworking Americans,” Israel said. “We’ll talk specifically about the solutions we bring to the table, solutions that allow people to own their own home and help people save for their kids’ college education.”

Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, a moderate and member of the committee, said it was clear from Tuesday’s discussion that leadership is focused on competitive districts where Democrats can pick up seats.

“They started the meeting by holding up a list of the frontliners … that need to be defended,” said Himes, referring to vulnerable Democrats. “Their message was about keeping their seats. Also on that seat were vulnerable Republicans that have similar districts.”

The group also focused on how Democrats should talk about the Republican-controlled Congress with voters. But Israel said House Democrats could have a softer, more positive message for 2016 than past cycles.

“One of the things that arose is that voters are tired of the instant vilification that each party engages in toward the other and we have to find ways of contrasting our ideas with Republican ideas without falling into the trap of name-calling,” the New York Democrat said. “There is always going to be contrast but if its just negative, the message is not going to work.”