Would The Democrats Have Won More Seats If Pelosi Cleaned Up The DCCC After Their Losses Since 2010?

Professional losers

The DCCC and Pelosi's House Majority PAC, illegally coordinating their efforts, funded 30 candidates (just 30) with sums between $7,238,618 for Steve Santarsiero (PA-08), who lost with 45.5%, and $1,069,507 for Anna Throne Holst (NY-01) who lost with 41%. Of the 30 candidates they funded, 8 won, 21 lost and one, Doug Applegate, is still too close to call. Here's the whole list:

• PA-08- $7,238,618- Steve Santarsiero- 45.5%
• NV-03- $6,850,028- Jackie Rosen won
• FL-26- $6,101,294- Joe Garcia- 41.2%
• VA-10- $6,068,688- LuAnn Bennett- 47.1%
• TX-23- $5,301,699- Pete Gallego- 46.8%
• CA-10- $4,708,313- Michael Eggman 47.6%
• NV-04- $4,516,112- Ruben Kihuen won
• CO-06- $4,970,827- Morgan Carroll- 42.4%
• FL-07- Stephanie Murphy won
• NJ-05- $4,090,077- Josh Gottheimer won
• ME-02- $4,035,982- Emily Cain- 45.1%
• NY-22- $3,563,474- Kim Myers- 40.4%
• MN-03- $3,783,284- Terri Bonoff- 43.1%
• CA-49- $3,231,961- Doug Applegate N/A
• IA-03- $3,197,753- Jim Mowrer- 39.8%
• CA-25- $3,176,482- Bryan Caforio- 45.7%
• AZ-01- $3,001,713- Tom O'Halleran won
• MN-02- $2,837,602- Angie Craig- 45.2%
• CO-03- $2,920,096- Gail Schwartz- 40.8%
• NY-19- $2,776,546- Zephyr Teachout- 45.3%
• FL-13- $2,553,435- Charlie Crist won
• MI-01- $2,482,393- Lon Johnson- 39.7%
• CA-21- $2,000,462- Emilio Huerta- 41.4%
• IL-10- $1,983,222- Brad Schneider won
• CA-24- $1,658,266- Salud Carbajal won
• IA-01- $1,466,452- Monica Vernon- 46.1%
• NY-24- $1,428,213- Colleen Deacon- 39%
• IN-09- $1,403,035- Shelli Yoder- 40.5%
• KS-03- $1,351,966- Jay Sidie- 40.6%
• NY-01- $1,069,507- Anna Throne Holst- 41%

Many of these candidates are excruciatingly bad but that's not what this post is about. We're just going to talk about numbers. Conventional wisdom is Washington is that anything over 45% for a challenger is a good showing and perhaps proof that the candidate should even try again next time. Below 45% is... a problem. After spending over $6 million of Florida New Dem Joe Garcia, for example, to only see him walk away with 41.2% of the vote is a pretty good guarantee that Carlos Curbelo will be facing a more viable Democrat in 2018 and not the corrupt conservative the DCCC wasted all that money on this year. A full dozen of the candidates the DCCC spent over a million dollars on ended with less than 45% of the vote.

What about candidates that didn't get help from the DCCC? Did any of them manage to get above the 45% mark without huge infusions of DCCC cash and DCCC bad advice and incompetent staffing? Yes, of course and we'll take a look in a moment. There was a net gain of 6 seats, which means if the DCCC gets out of the way in 2018 and two-dozen Democrats win (24 seats changing from red to blue, with no blue losses), the Democrats take over the House 218 to 217. last week Pelosi announced that the caucus would elect 5 regional vice-chairs of the DCCC. If they elect better vice chairs than the losers she's been selecting as chairmen since 2006, the Democrats CAN win back the House in 2018, as long as Ryan overreaches as egregiosly as most observers expect him to-- moving, for example against long-time Republican Party bugaboos like Medicare, Social Security, business and environmental regulations, minimum wages, etc.

Perhaps it will be helpful for the new vice-chairs to look at the candidates who won their races without DCCCC help or who did as well or better than some of the candidates the DCCC spent big bucks on. Candidates who won without any DCCC help (for a variety of reasons; only one was a red-to-blue situation) were:

• Carol Shea-Porter (NH)
• Pramila Jayapal (WA)
• Nanette Barragan (CA)
• Tom Suozzi (NY)
• Val Demings (FL)
• Al Lawson (FL)
• Dwight Evans (PA)
• Darren Soto (FL)
• Vicente González (TX)
• Adriano Espaillat (NY)
• Colleen Hanabusa (HI)
• Lou Correa (CA)
• Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL)
• Jimmy Panetta (CA)
• Ro Khanna (CA)
• Lisa Rochester (DE)

Now let's take a look at some of the states the DCCC felt they could invest in and pick up lots of seats, something they failed at miserably. We'll look at Michigan, New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania. The DCCC and House Majority PAC wasted over 3 million dollars in Michigan and won no seats. Their biggest investment was for a pathetic drunkard and NRA shill, Blue Dog Lon Johnson, who's married to a well-connected Obama bundler. The 2,482,393 they threw into that race yielded a mere 39.7% of the vote for an open-seat. They also put $757,427 into another Blue Dog, Gretchen Driskell in her race against Tim Walberg. Walberg beat her 55.0-40.1%. These are the other Michigan candidates who were as viable but who they didn't invest in:

• Douglas Smith (MI-03)- 37.5%
• Paul Clements (MI-06)- 36.4%
• Suzanna Shkreli (MI-08)- 39.2%
• Anil Kumar (MI-11)- 40.2%

Dr. Anil Kumar-- could have won

Kumar, who was running against an especially unattractive GOP freshman incumbent, Dave Trott, had raised $1,068,256 as of the Oct 19 FEC reporting deadline (to Trott's $1,188,044). He did better than Lon Johnson and one can only try to guess what the results would have been if the DCCC spent the 2,482,393 that they wasted on Johnson's race on Kumar's. It's worth noting that the well-connected Johnson is in a district where Romney beat Obama 54-45%, while in Kumar's more Democrat-friendly district Romney won 52-47%. But, as they always do, the DCCC opted dot spend the money on a Republican-lite candidate (Johnson) while starving a better progressive candidate. It's what they do; it's all they ever do. And they lose and lose and lose and lose... and then do it again. It's part of the DCCC's DNA. Pelosi is so busy defending her incompetent chairmen that she can't see the simple pattern of behavior that began in 2006 under Rahm Emanuel and will apparently live on as a zombie imperative for eternity-- or at least until the House Democrats get rid of her.

In New York state, the DCCC spent big in 4 races and lost all 4. Three were races where they backed the wrong candidates and 1-- Zephyr Teachout's race-- was because they drastically underspent, $2,776,546 to the GOP's approximately $7 million. These were the New York races in play with the DCCC spend and the candidates; score:

• Kim Myers ($3,563,474)- 40.4%
• Zephyr Teachout ($2,776,546)- 45.3%
• Colleen Deacon ($1,428,213)- 39%
• Anna Throne-Holst ($1,069,507)- 41%
• Tom Suozzi ($267,116)- 52.4%
• DuWayne Gregory- 37.6%
• John Plumb ($71,763)- 41.9%

What went wrong aside from the purposeful underspending in NY-19 (Zephyr's race)? In NY-24 the DCCC interfered with the primary, helping a completely worthless nothing candidate, Colleen Deacon, who former Blue Dog and Wall Street shill Kirsten Gillibrand insisted on, get the nomination although she would have no chance to win even in the D+5 district. A total waste of nearly a million and a half dollars for a seat that progressive Eric Kingson could most likely have won-- and would certainly have done far better than Deacon's pathetic 39%. In NY-02, Steve Israel was so eager to protect his crony Peter King that he totally sabotaged Democrat DuWayne Gregory and prevented the DCCC from investing in his race, a far more winnable district than many the DCCC poured millions into. Unless Pelosi keeps corrupt scumbags like Steve Israel and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (who did the exact same thing to protect her pal Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Miami) away from the process, the DCCC will just continue failing forever.

Since I mentioned Wasserman Schultz and her pal Ileana, let's take a look at the Florida races. The state's silliest was to fill the Treasure Coast seat (FL-18) that Patrick Murphy gave up for his futile Senate bid. The DCCC wanted someone just like Murphy, a rich, clueless Republican masquerading as a Democrat. They found a clone: Randall Perkins, who "joined" the Democratic Party just before the filing deadline and then self-funded to the tune of $7,827,029 (while only bringing in $2,708 from small donors). The DCCC put him on their Red-to-Blue list but he ran such an inept campaign that even they didn't invest any money in it. His vanity campaign suffered a crushing defeat, 201,011 (53.6%) to 161,328 (43.0%) one of the only seats in the country that flipped blue to red. Perkins was the ideal DCCC candidate. If they could, they would run him in every single district in the country, giving the GOP 100% of the seats. And the following cycle-- in Pelosi was still in charge-- they would run him in every single district again.

The DCCC did have one big win in Florida, running a conservative Blue Dog, Stephanie Murphy in an Orlando area district (FL-07) and taking out feeble old incumbent John Mica 51.5% to 48.5% (beating him by over 10,000 votes). I have no doubt that Murphy will be a pile of stinking garbage as a member and eventually lose the seat when Democrats realize what they elected. Although Murphy only raised $775,321 to Mica's $1,239,841, he ran a lethargic and inept campaign and the NRCC only spent $1,574,866 to try to rescue him, while the DCCC and the House Majority PAC poured $4,608,386 into the district.

But the big screw up was in Miami Dade, where the DCCC ignored and undermined the candidates running against Wasserman Schultz's pals, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz Balart and instead flushed $6,101,294 into Joe Garcia's losing campaign. Garcia, whose constituents kicked him out of office in 2014 because he is too conservative and too corrupt for the district. But the DCCC thought he could win if they just wasted millions of more ineffectively spent dollars on him. He was ignominiously defeated 148,449 (53.0%) to 115,348 (41.2%). Just next door, in a similarly blue district (Obama won each with 53%), the DCCC refused to help Scott Fuhrman against Ros-Lehtinen because... Debbie. But despite the $6 million the DCCC spent on behalf of Garcia, Fuhrman did better against Ros-Lehtinen than Garcia did against Curbelo. He lost 157,763 (54.9%) to 129,548 (45.1%). Has Tim Canova beaten the wretched Wasserman Schultz in the primary, Fuhrman may well have gotten some help and won the district. If Canova beats Wasserman Schultz in 2018, the Democrats will stand a good chance to win FL-27 and retire Ros-Lehtinen once and for all.

Other Florida Democrats who ran without any DCCC financial support but who did better than Garcia did with his mighty $6 million:

• FL-05 Al Lawson- 64.2%
• FL-06- Bill McCullough- 41.4%
• FL-09- Darren Soto- 57.5%
• FL-10- Val Demings- 64.9%
• FL-15- Jim Lange- 42.5%
• FL-18- Randy Perkins- 43.0%

Even though Hillary didn't beat Trump in Pennsylvania, she beat him in counties that were part of the targeted congressional districts: Bucks, Delaware, Montgomery and Chester counties. The Democrats' big hopes were in the Philly collar districts-- PA-06, PA-07 and PA-08. Their recruitment efforts failed dismally and predicted the 3 embarrassing losses. The congressional candidates didn't win any of the counties in their districts. The open Bucks County race was the only one the DCCC invested in (their biggest bet of the cycle-- $7,238,618) and lost it 54.5% to 45.5%. Hillary beat Trump in Bucks County 165,861 to 163,873 but Santarsiero lost there to Brian Fitzpatrick 181,772 to 155,807. And, as we've discussed before, the district the DCCC just completely threw away was PA-07, where they tried recruiting a Wall Street shill who was beaten by a grassroots progress (Mary Ellen Balchunis, 74-26%) and then left Mary Ellen with no money to face Pat Meehan. Meehan raised $2,302,724 to Mary Ellen's $182,210. By sitting on their hands, the DCCC threw away a perfectly winnable seat. Again, it's what they do; it's all they ever do.