Progressives face steep odds in ousting incumbent Democrats

[left-of-center2012]

Progressive candidates are launching primary challenges against incumbents like Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), but has yet to recruit more candidates or spell out how it intends to help support challengers. The group spent only $2.5 million in the 2018 campaign cycle.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ campaign arm, has said that it will not do business with consultants who work with primary challengers, a restriction that has infuriated progressives.

“We saw a lot of progressive candidates lose in 2018. They did not win,” Jennifer Holdsworth, a Democratic strategist and senior vice president of issues management at MWWPR public relations firm, told The Hill. Challengers to incumbents have historically struggled.

Rep. Engel, currently in his 16th term in the House, is facing two progressive challengers. But he won his 2018 primary handily, defeating three challengers and receiving roughly 74 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, Rep. Cuellar, now in his eighth term, is being challenged by his former intern, immigration lawyer Jessica Cisneros. But Cuellar’s campaign committee had $2.5 million cash on hand as of the end of 2018 — showing the perks of incumbency in raising money.

Other progressive challengers could be facing even steeper odds to topple incumbents, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) challenger, Shahid Buttar, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s (D-Md.) challengers, Briana Urbina and Mckayla Wilkes.

Some strategists worry that progressives could push the party too far to the left or that they could hand Democrats loses to Republicans should progressives prevail in their primaries.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/452309-progressives-face-steep-odds-in-ousting-incumbent-democrats

[Me.]

1. Progressives Should Be Seeking To Oust ReCons

not Dems...it's counterproductive

[zipplewrath]

2. To your goals

It could be counter productive to your goals.
It may not be to theirs. Even pulling candidates to the left, despite not unseating them, could advance these peoples goals.

[Me.]

4. Well, If Enough Dems Are Replaced By Cons

due to their tactics they can kiss any sort of their goals goodbye

[zipplewrath]

6. IF

If they move enough incumbents to the left, they'll succeed.,

[Me.]

7. OK

How's their track record of success so far? %'s

[zipplewrath]

12. Apparently

They've move the entire democratic presidential field to the left, including making Biden back way from past positions.
So far so good.

[Hortensis]

9. Replacing incumbents with Republicans

moves government right and destroys progressive government. Remember 2016?

Many tens of millions of genuine progressive Democrats voted to try to protect progressivism in the midterms. Just imagine where we’d be now if radical types attempting to unseat Democrats had succeeded in losing the house to the Republicans again? Along with the Senate and the White House as in 2016?

We need legislators who put progressive government and the needs of the people ahead of power seeking. That means “allowing” some conservative Democrats who don’t want their incumbents moved left to continue to elect conservative Democrats to represent them, and that’s also they way it is supposed to be.

Representative government means just that. In my opinion, btw, a progressive conservative is many times better than any of the progressive radicals who are willing to throw government to the Republicans any day.

Been listening to the reports of those detained the children in Texas?

[zipplewrath]

11. According to the DCCC

That means “allowing” some conservative Democrats who don’t want their incumbents moved left to continue to elect conservative Democrats to represent them, and that’s also they way it is supposed to be.

The DCC says you should try at all.

"Allowing" means having the primary and letting them choose. Not threatening anyone who tries with being "black listed".

[Hortensis]

13. Yes. Educate the voters, then they choose.

Oh worlds difference from a bunch of outsiders coming in and badmouthing the incumbent while miss representing the issues and what they offer and trying to make their favorite candidate sound like anything but what he or she really is.

My big objection is to dishonorable campaigns that use the same techniques to overset local opinion that the right does, just for different candidates.

[zipplewrath]

15. I struggle

I get emails requesting funds for candidates in primaries for other districts and states. A large part of me feels that it is a local primary and should be contested at the local level. Unfortunately for primary challengers, the DCCC will give the incumbent money that is collected outside of the district. It's basically an incumbency protection organization. And incumbents collect large amounts of money from lobbyist who are from well outside the local district. So why shouldn't people from outside the district contribute to a local primary in which they have an interest in the outcome.

[Hortensis]

23. #1: support honorable people

Right?

#2: Oppose dishonorable people. Right?

Wearing the label “progressive” does not make anyone honorable, or as progressive even as the typical Democrat. When they’re lying to voters, when they use the same arguments the Republicans and Russians are using to unseat incumbents, they’re not honorable. When they are endangering progressivism in government itself, take a very cool, clear-eyed look at them.

Remember the Dexit movement these same people supported after we nominated Hillary Clinton? Remember that 24% of Sanders so-called progressive followers helped elect Republicans? 12% of them Voting directly for Trump? Remember the belief of many that destroying the Democratic Party would be a good thing, and necessary as a step to their brave new world?

Remember the disappointment in many of the groups that sprang up after Sanders lost when Democrats were elected and reelected to office? Expressed right here on DU? Remember that some of them even tried to defeat Democrats and elect Republicans?

This is not progressivism. This is something else, and we don’t want it. It’s as destructive as what’s happening on the right. We’d have universal healthcare by now, or something very close to it with more coming, if it weren’t for these phony “progressives.” The only blessing is that they’re far smaller in numbers than their counterparts on the right.

By the way, did you know our intelligence services say that Russia is trying to unite them with the Trumpsters to defeat us? No surprise. That is a standard method for bringing down democracies.

[zipplewrath]

24. And

There's the candidate who runs progressive every 2 years, only to abandon it once the election is over. Not exactly honorable either right? The reason many incumbents get a primary challenger is because they run on one platform, and govern on another.

[Hortensis]

25. Far fewer Dems than simple minded people realize do.

We are talking about Democrats here after all, not Republicans.

Just as in football, there’s another team on the field and the path to the goal is never a straight line. If even half the electorate knew as much about the legislative process as they do about how football players run that ball, our voters would be much wiser and less vulnerable to the lies of power-seeking scoundrels.

The biggest of all is taking advantage of ignorance by claiming Republican crimes and corruption for Democrats.

[Me.]

14. Well Said

[Thekaspervote]

3. Indeed!

[themaguffin]

22. With maybe a rare exception, the focus should be on the GOP

[gratuitous]

5. If the incumbents are still representative of their constituents, they'll win

If they've gotten complacent over the years, taking their re-election for granted, they could be in trouble. If they have had some generational drift and lost touch with their voters, they could be in trouble. Unseating incumbents is tough in any case, but particularly intraparty. Lots of people are interconnected with the person currently in that elected position, and building a new relationship with someone else is a hassle. Far preferable to have someone you know and have worked with that to start all over again with someone new, someone who might not "get" you the way the incumbent does.

But even with all that, sometimes the newcomer wins. And there's usually a really good reason for that.

[zipplewrath]

16. Only if there is a primary

My primary object here (excuse the pun) is that organizations like the DCCC work to make sure there aren't primaries. Primaries aren't always bad, especially for constituents that find their representative has lost his way. We don't want them to have to decide to vote GOP, or not vote at all, in order to get rid of one individual.

[gratuitous]

17. I'm mostly in favor of competitive primaries, too

Particularly when the contest features a more liberal or progressive candidate than the incumbent. If the incumbent is still the party choice as expressed by party voters (I'm also in favor of closed primaries), fine. But if the district or the state is ready for more liberal representation, let the voters have that choice.

[zipplewrath]

19. Unfortunately

The DCCC, the DSCC, and the DNC don't really agree with you. Nor do many Du'ers.

[Demsrule86]

8. Why would you waste time and money on this? Spend money to win over voters to the

progressive cause or to take Repug seats...any Democrats who do this have lost my vote in any future primary...I vote straight Democratic in a general...but I don't care for this at all.

[irisblue]

10. Rep Joyce Beatty, Ohio3rd has a Dem Challenger, Morgan Harper

Source--https://radio.wosu.org/post/morgan-harper-challenging-rep-joyce-beatty-ohios-3rd-district

Snips-Flanked by supporters at Social Justice Park in downtown Columbus, political newcomer Morgan Harper announced her run for Congress. She’s launching a progressive challenge against incumbent Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio).

More at source.

I know nothing about Harper, besides the article. I do like Rep Beatty, however she & her husband are definitely interconnected into the traditional Democratic. party here.
Her office staff, local & DC has been responsive.

According to Ballotpedia..."Based on analysis of multiple outside rankings, Beatty is an average Democratic member of Congress, meaning she will vote with the Democratic Party on the majority of bills."

The Ohio Rep party has Beatty in a dafe for her navy blue Democratic seat because it's 'urban'.

[highplainsdem]

18. I hope they do, and I hope they lose unless they're as likely to win the GE as the incumbent is.

We really don't need to hand control of the House back to the GOP.

[Hekate]

21. Nice. Divide the Dem vote, make sure the incumbent looks bad, disgusted Dem voters stay home...

Voila: seat gets filled by Repub.

Just brilliant. Wonder who that serves?

[Stinky The Clown]

26. Right there with you . . . . who does it serve?

I have to say, for quite some time I have wondered where their support comes from. When you consider who is served by eliminating or weakening an incumbent, you have to file it under "things that make you go hmmmm".

We need a left wing tea party as much as we need the right wing tea party.

Tweet bombs are no substitute for hard work in . . . . you know . . . . legislating.