DCCC Chair DelBene: House Republicans are “breaking promises to protect the well-connected, and not focused on the needs of the American people.”

• The Democrat in charge of retaking control of the House said her party is in a “strong position to take back the majority” – and warned Republicans that they would face blowback if they try to gerrymander their way to keeping power.
• Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chair Suzan DelBene, a congresswoman from Washington state, told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast Wednesday that the party is well positioned to net the three seats it needs to take power in the 2026 midterm elections.
• The congresswoman is in her second cycle as DCCC chair. In 2024, Democrats gained a net of two House seats even as they lost the White House, leaving them just three seats short of a majority. Midterm elections tend to cut against the party in power, and as she pointed out, Democrats have been consistently overperforming in special elections since Trump returned to the White House early this year.
• Ms. DelBene says this cycle has a different “intensity” compared with the 2018 midterms, when Democrats took back control of the House during Mr. Trump’s first administration. Whereas that term was more defined by “rhetoric” and threats to repeal the Affordable Care Act, she says, this term has seen Republicans fulfill that promise to constrain health care access.
• When asked if there are particular districts where she sees opportunity, Ms. DelBene referenced Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, where former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez announced Tuesday he is running again for the Democratic nomination against Republican Rep. Eli Crane. She also mentioned the open seat in Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District, where the departing GOP incumbent hopes to replace retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell, and Tennessee’s 5th District, which is held by Rep. Andy Ogles, “an extreme Republican who underperformed Donald Trump.”
• President Trump’s poll numbers are sagging, and Democrats have led Republicans in recent polls asking which party voters prefer to win the House.
• Ms. DelBene made clear that Democrats plan to run on economic issues. “Costs and the economy are absolutely No. 1,” she said. And she repeatedly brought up the rising cost of living, the administration’s tariff policy, and the GOP’s so-called “big, beautiful bill” – what she dubbed the “big, ugly bill.”
• “No. 1 across the board is affordability, the cost of living. Folks are struggling with the cost of housing, food, child care, health care, energy costs. And that was the big promise Republicans made, that they were going to lower costs on Day 1. [They] absolutely are not focused on that at all.”
• When asked whether President Trump’s handling of the Epstein issue will be a key part of Democrats’ midterm messaging, Ms. DelBene said her party would point to it as “another example of a broken promise,” before she quickly pivoted back to economic messaging.
• “This goes into a string of broken promises,” she said, arguing that Republicans had promised to lower costs and stand up for working families but instead focused on protecting wealthy people in their megabill.
• “They’re breaking promises to protect the well-connected, and not focused on the needs of the American people. That’s why it resonates so broadly across the country,” she said.

• Democrats are prepared to respond in full to Texas Republicans’ controversial redistricting proposal, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Suzan DelBene warned.
• “If they go down this path, absolutely folks are going to respond across the country,” DelBene, a Democratic congresswoman from Washington, told reporters at a meeting July 23. “We’re not going to be sitting back with one hand tied behind our back while Republicans try to undermine the voices of the American people.”
• In response to concerns about a tit-for-tat redistricting arms race, DelBene directed blame to Republicans in Texas: “They’ve already started down that path.”
• Democrats are also hoping that any shifts by the GOP in Texas will backfire.
• Moving reliably red voters into blue districts, they argue, could put incumbents in the districts they left at risk.
• “They should be careful what they ask for,” DelBene said. “When they start playing with maps, they also change districts, and that will make a lot of Republicans vulnerable.”

• The head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is convinced the party is “in a strong position” to flip the House in the midterm elections next year.
• DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene said that Democrats are targeting 35 GOP-held seats, including those in congressional districts where Vice President Kamala Harris won in the 2024 election and where Democratic candidates have previously secured at least 49% of the vote.
• “It’s a broad map,” Ms. DelBene told reporters Wednesday at a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor.
• Ms. DelBene, who represents Washington’s 1st Congressional District, said Democrats are carrying momentum from off-year special election wins nationwide. She said she expects that to carry over in an election cycle that typically serves as a referendum on the sitting president’s party.
• “Since November of 2024, we have seen strength across the country because people are outraged by what they see happening,” she said. “The No. 1 issue that folks have wanted to see addressed across the country is lowering costs, and the administration, both Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress, have done nothing to lower costs.”

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