Even though Biden appears to be edging Trump out in the presidential race, assuming a volley of recounts and Supreme Court lawsuits do not materially change the outcome in battleground states, it is undisputable that the election did not go as Democrats had desired: between Trump’s pick up of 2 million votes in the popular vote, the loss of Hispanic votes in Florida and Texas, and the elephant in the room – the inability to retake the Senate, condemning a possible Biden administration to at least two years of Congressional gridlock eliminating the chance of a tax overhaul or a Green New Deal – there is no disputing that the Democrats failed to achieve most of their goals.
And now the blame game begins, with The Hill reporting that stung by their party’s disappointing showing at the polls Tuesday, “two moderate House Democrats say they and other centrists are privately discussing a plan that was unthinkable just 24 hours earlier: throwing their support behind a challenger to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”
The two Democrats told The Hill on Wednesday that they were reaching out to their colleagues about backing one of Pelosi’s top lieutenants, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), for Speaker.
“He’s the only one prepared and positioned” to be Speaker, one of the Democratic lawmakers told the Hill. “He bridges moderates and progressives better than anyone. And most importantly, he’s not Nancy Pelosi.”
According to the report, the grumbling “reflects a remarkable shift in internal Democratic thinking in the immediate wake of Tuesday’s elections” – the reason: while Pelosi and Democratic leaders had promised to build on their majority — some estimates were in the double digits — but the early returns revealed a different reality: Not only did Democrats fail to protect a number of their most vulnerable members, they had not picked off a single Republican incumbent heading into Wednesday afternoon. Instead, lawmakers were left “licking their wounds and questioning the messaging and strategy decisions heading into Tuesday’s polls.”…
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