Nancy Pelosi dismisses polls, insists Democrats are ‘in great shape’ for midterms
Nancy Pelosi dismisses polls, insists Democrats are ‘in great shape’ for midterms
Democratic Congressional leaders are banking on turnout in the midterms that would prove to be the best in their generation, even if it means that their party would continue to rule the White House, and the House, for the foreseeable future.
The midterm election is less than two weeks away, and Pelosi, the speaker, and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, have made their case in a series of Sunday morning television appearances against the polls, insisting that voters will elect a diverse, pragmatic Congress that will put the party in the best possible position to govern, regardless of the polls. Yet despite the claims, they have not provided any evidence of whether their party will do better than in 2014, when it lost control of the House.
So far, they have stuck to their guns. When asked about the polls, Pelosi says: “Democrats are in great shape.” She added: “I have no idea where the polls are going to go, and I have no idea.”
And on CBS News, Schumer said this month: “You get in the new numbers, we’ll just have to see which way it goes.” He added: “We’ll have to see what the numbers say.”
Schumer and Pelosi have made the same claim twice this month, claiming there has not been a significant change in the polls to suggest that Democrats would be in better shape in November than in 2014.
The Democratic congressional leaders are relying on a familiar narrative of an incumbent party whose performance is being compared to that of the party of the president and the House, which has been in the worst shape since 2010. And this year, unlike in 2010, the president is unpopular and unpopularity is at an all-time high, the result of two years of sluggish economic growth and an unpopular healthcare law.
Since the congressional results are not yet in, polls do not include the Democratic