Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said her party is “on offense” on the “Trump-Musk agenda” in targeting dozens of GOP congressional districts in next year’s mid-term elections.
“And Republicans are running scared— for good reason,” DelBene said this morning on “Way too Early.”
Americans “are seeing prices go up, programs that they depend on being attacked, like Social Security and Medicaid, folks who serve our communities losing their jobs,” DelBene said.
It’s a preview of the message she hopes will be salient in the districts where Democrats plan to mount challenges.
“It’s kitchen table issues: economy, cost of housing, of food, of child care, of health care,” she said.
DelBene, who also ran the Democratic campaign effort in 2024, said she hopes to take advantage of House GOP incumbents’ running for higher office, such as Andy Barr in Kentucky, who is considering a run for Senate, or John James in Michigan, who is running for governor.
“That’s an opportunity for us,” DelBene said, referring to James. She added, “Open seats can be easier” to flip.
“We also have a lot of seats that were really, really close last time,” she said. “We have seats that have been swinging — they went for Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024, there are nine of those seats. So those are all opportunities for us,” she said.
“And we saw what happened in Florida too, where Republicans won by huge margins,” she said. “Those were slashed in half in just a few months. It kind of tells you the tenor of where the American people are at and their frustration and anger with Republicans, understandably.”
DelBene noted that the party in the White House tends to fare poorly in midterm election years.
“History is on our side here,” she said. “We only need three seats to take back the majority, and they have a microscopic majority right now.”
