House Democratic Losses Have Members Asking...What Happened?

[Subject to change]

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is doing her job trying to say that Democrats have a mandate this year. They don’t. She’s going to be working with a very slim Democratic majority and there is still an off chance that Republicans, believe it or not, could retake the House. This is subject to change, of course, but this is not a blue wave year. Even MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow admitted this. Republicans were supposed to lose seats this cycle, but they didn’t. They gained seats. Alarm bells are already ringing, with more level-headed members, like Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), saying that the Democratic Party’s flirtation with socialism and defunding the police almost cost her re-election (via ABC News):

House Democrats grappled with the results of the still-unfolding election on a conference call Thursday, struggling with how to understand their unexpected losses even as former Vice President Joe Biden appears to be on the path to the White House.
While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants predicted Democrats would expand their majority ahead of Election Day, Republicans are on track for a net gain of seats.
"Something went wrong here across the entire political world," said Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., the chair of the House Democrats' Campaign Committee who nearly lost her race in a President Donald Trump-supporting district.
[…]
Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., a former CIA officer who narrowly defeated her opponent in a moderate suburban district around Richmond, was blunt with her colleagues about the results.
"From a congressional standpoint, it was a failure. It was not a success," she said. "We lost members we shouldn't have lost."
[…]
"If we are classifying Tuesday as a success and we run this way again, we will get f------ torn apart in 2022," she said flatly.

According to NYT's count, Republicans have now flipped 5 House seats. Fox News projected last night that Democrats would flip 5. So far, Fox was off by 10 seats. https://t.co/FNrpwugeZN pic.twitter.com/HL4zbvYk6A
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) November 4, 2020

NEW: Republicans in Orange County have increased their leads in races for US House. Two seats GOP is looking to flip. #CA39
(R) Young Kim: 101,583 52.42%
(D) Gil Cisneros: 92,212 47.58%#CA48
(R) Michelle Steel 179,452 50.67%
(D) Harley Rouda 174,678 49.33%@FOXLA
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) November 6, 2020

republicans have taken the lead in four competitive california house races (ca-21, ca-25, ca-39, and ca-48) as more ballot drops have come in

ca-21, ca-39, and ca-48 are currently held by dems while ca-25 was flipped by republican mike garcia in a special election this summer pic.twitter.com/bHAGEJriKC
— Thao Nguyen (@nguyenthevote) November 6, 2020

As @adrian_gray mentioned, these House races have swung to the GOP as votes are counted.

IL-14, UT-4, CA-25, CA-39

Three of those would be GOP pickups, and Republicans are making gains in the House that no one saw coming.

The Generic Ballot was D+7 pic.twitter.com/VDTVQElt1y
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) November 6, 2020

416 House races appear decided
Democrats 212
Republicans 204 (+10)

19 Seats remain, GOP lead in 10

To win 218 (and House majority), GOP would need to win all the districts they are leading in, plus:
CA-25
GA-07
PA-17
UT-04
— Adrian Gray (@adrian_gray) November 5, 2020

Um, if elected, Biden would be the 1st president in 32 years coming in w/o complete control of Congress https://t.co/0B3T5se3DD
— Matt Gorman (@mattsgorman) November 6, 2020

Hearing from multiple sources that House R’s could realistically end up with 210-214 seats when everything shakes out. Truly wild, given projections / expectations.
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) November 7, 2020

My count in 212 but no one really knows what is going on in NY.
— Sean T at RCP (@SeanTrende) November 7, 2020

This is a debate that is not going away among Democrats, which could lead to some serious bloodsports, as progressives don’t want to compromise and everyone knows what’s up, for lack of a better term, regarding how well the far Left actually does in places that aren’t New York City, Boston, Detroit, or all of California.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) is another moderate Democrat who won re-election, despite being caught in a lie about staying in DC until a COVID relief bill was passed. After making that declaration, she was found fleeing for home about an hour later.

.@RepSlotkin told CNN she wasn’t going home from DC without a deal on COVID relief.

Less than 40 minutes later, @ElissaSlotkin was at the DCA airport where she refused to answer why she was headed home without a deal.https://t.co/EhjELMpMBl

WATCH ? pic.twitter.com/Sq6zZjAnZi
— Congressional Leadership Fund (@CLFSuperPAC) September 18, 2020

At any rate, this was another slice of the 2020 cycle where the so-called polling experts were wrong. As Reagan noted, conservative women dominated and Ms. Bustos almost got clipped. That's not the sign of healthy ground for Democrats at the congressional level by any stretch.