WASHINGTON — Democratic Party divisions were on glaring display Wednesday as a special election loss in a wildly expensive Georgia House race left bitter lawmakers turning their anger on their own leaders.
“We as Democrats have to come to terms with the fact that we lost again,” said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass. “Personally I think it’s time for a new generation of leadership in the party.”
The loss in Georgia followed similar disappointments in special House elections in Kansas and Montana, as well as in South Carolina Tuesday night. The Carolina outcome was closer than in Georgia but drew little national attention.
In the well-to-do Atlanta suburbs, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California was the focus of torrents of negative advertising in a House race that cost more than $50 million, the most expensive in history. Republican Karen Handel beat Democrat Jon Ossoff by about 5 percentage points.
Although the race was widely viewed as a referendum on President Donald Trump, he was rarely discussed by either candidate, and House Democrats were rattled that the attack ads casting the 77-year-old Pelosi as a San Francisco liberal proved so potent. Some expressed fears about the same tactic being used elsewhere as they aim to take back control of the House in next year’s midterms. Democrats need to pick up 24 House seats to retake the majority.
“It makes it a heck of a lot harder,” said Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, who unsuccessfully challenged Pelosi in a leadership election last fall. “One of the disappointing things from the last couple days is that that approach has a little bit of punch to it, it still moves voters.”
Trump’s election as president had papered over the intraparty disputes and generational divides among House Democrats, as lawmakers joined in opposing the White House and trying to channel the energy of their party’s liberal base. But now, after a string of disappointments, those divisions have re-emerged, though Pelosi appears unlikely to face an immediate challenge.
Lawmakers are also bemoaning a weak Democratic bench of candidates nationally, and demanding a better strategy for success and a new and stronger economic message that differentiates them more clearly from the Republicans.
“If we think we’re going to win these elections because President Trump’s at 35 percent, I think in districts like mine and certainly Georgia and South Carolina, it takes more than that,” said Rep. Tim Walz of Minnesota. “And I’m not sure that that’s there yet. I certainly don’t feel it.”
Put on defense, House Democratic leaders from Pelosi on down tried to spin the outcome in Georgia as positive, arguing that coming in a close second in the solidly Republican district augured well for their chances of taking back the House next year.
“Unfortunately a loss for us, but not good news for them,” Pelosi told the rank-and-file in a closed door meeting Wednesday morning, according to Democrats present. “We gave them a run for their money.”
Democratic leaders said there are at least 70 other districts that will be easier terrain for them than the one in Georgia after post-census gerrymandering in GOP-led states created so many heavily Republican districts.
Many rank-and-file Democrats were not having it.
“We put a lot of resources, a lot of fight, and close is only good in horseshoes,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J. “A loss is a loss is a loss and there’s no excuses.”