Earlier this month House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attempted to downplay the influence "The Squad" has in Washington, noting “they’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.” But a new Morning Consult survey suggests they are reaching beyond “their public whatever and their Twitter world.”
According to the survey, 40 percent of registered voters believe Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) represent the views of Democrats in Washington, while 58 percent believe Pelosi represents the views of Democrats in Washington.
The Morning Consult analysis notes that given this finding, “it might be prudent for Democrats to distance themselves” from the freshmen lawmakers, who’ve been in Washington less than seven months.
Republicans, however, are working hard to paint “The Squad” as the face of the Democratic Party ahead of the 2020 election.
When National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) recently sat down with reporters in Washington to discuss the lay of the land for taking back the House, he framed the 2020 election as a “choice between socialism and freedom,” and dubbed House Democrats as the “new Red Army of socialists.”
Like President Donald Trump has done in his repeated attacks on four Democratic congresswomen — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) — Emmer sought to elevate the freshman lawmakers who call themselves “The Squad” as the face of the Democratic Party after six months in which they have attempted to push the debate on Capitol Hill to the left.
“It’s my strong belief that voters want nothing to do with this agenda — this socialist agenda,” Emmer said at a July 18 breakfast, criticizing policies such as “Medicare for All” and the Green New Deal that are being pushed by House progressives and some of the Democratic presidential contenders.
The focus on socialism is a strategy playing out across the country as Trump campaigns for four more years in the White House and Republicans fight to take the gavel back from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). (Morning Consult)
Last week, President Trump said he was winning the political fight with "The Squad" and said the Democratic Party is going "so far left they're going to fall off a cliff."
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