‘Will they choose the party of health care or the party of drinking bleach?’ Architect of 2018 House flip on making it even more blue

People are ready for change, congresswoman Cheri Bustos tells Andrew Buncombe

Cheri Bustos has often pitched herself as a bridge between different wings of her party (Getty)

Two years ago, congresswoman Cheri Bustos helped spearhead the Democrats’ retaking of the House of Representatives.

It was a notable win in several ways. The 40 seats the party gained by winning back women voters and those in the suburbs who had gone for the Republicans in 2016, was the largest since flip since 1974. It led to the most diverse chamber the nation had seen – more women, more people of colour, more members of the LBGTQ community.

This year, Bustos is looking for more wins. She believes the circumstances in the country are ripe to secure the presidency, retake the Senate and add more members in the House.

Polls show Donald Trump trailing Joe Biden by anything up to 14 points, and his approval rating on how he has handled the coronavirus has declined rapidly.

“I think that as we look ahead to November of 2020, voters clearly have a choice,” she tells The Independent from Illinois, where her district includes the city of Peoria, political shorthand for unflashy, no-nonsense middle America.

“Will they choose the party of health care or will they choose the party of drinking bleach – and it’s literally that different. We’re working hard and making sure we have the policies that are helping people.”

As chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Bustos is among the most influential members of the party. As someone who has been able to win in a district that voted for Donald Trump in 2016, she frequently pitches herself as a bridge between its progressive and centrist wings.

In 2018, along with Nancy Pelosi, the speaker, Bustos helped craft a campaign message that focused on issues such as health care and education. It pointedly avoided talking about impeachment, something that frustrated some.

Two years later, Trump has been impeached by the House, and the coronavirus pandemic, along with the enduring influence of Bernie Sanders and his liberal agenda, has forced the presumptive candidate, Biden, to adopt policies far more progressive than many may have expected.

Recently the two men unveiled the conclusions of a taskforce that came up with policies that sought to expand access to healthcare, aggressively address climate change, overhaul a criminal justice system exposed as racist at its core, and an economic transformation plan that includes economic and racial justice.

The Vermont senator, whose supporters Biden needs, said he believed an administration headed by the former vice president might be “the most progressive” since that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s.

Bustos spoke to The Independent in the late spring, before the specifics of the policy platform were released and before the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police officers triggered protests for racial justice around the world.

Nevertheless, she dismissed a suggestion that the ideas Biden had been talking about as introducing to confront the pandemic, would simply be too progressive in some of those battleground seats. (Bustos is one of around 30 Democrats who won in districts that voted for Trump.)

Part of the challenge for both parties come November is that neither can foretell what the precise situation in the country will be.

The coronavirus has already infected 3.9m people in the US and killed more than 140,000. It has caused million to lose their jobs, or to work only part-time. The unemployment rate stands at around 11 per cent, and politicians on Capitol Hill are talking about a fifth stimulus package. Trump is counting on an economic restoration, so much say his critics, he is willing to risk people’s health.

Bustos says the correct approach is to address both issues simultaneously.

“What people are talking about at home, it’s still health care, number one,” she says. “But we have to start looking ahead to what an economic recovery looks like … so we can jump start the economy after this. And what Mr Biden will be focusing on, and what House Democrats will be focusing on … we’ll be in the same lane on that.”

She adds: “People on the ground are in a real rush for us to do something.”

While many believe Biden is well placed to defeat Trump in the battle for the White House, that contest can play out in different ways on other races, most notably the Senate and House. Typically, voters tell pollsters they do not like the executive branch of government, and the two legislative chambers, to be controlled by the same party.

Recently, pollster Jill Normington told a media briefing arranged by the DCCC about the advice she gave to candidates contesting districts won by Trump. In essence, it stressed highlighting those areas where the candidate had been able to work with the president for the good of the district, without allowing them to fall prey to efforts by their opponents to portray them as radical.

That is something Trump has been trying to do with Biden, with so far little success. It is likely to continue. Jeanne Zaino, a political scientist at New York’s Iona University, says one area Trump may have some success is in seeking to portray Biden as part of the DC establishment, (despite these days being part of it himself).

She says Trump's decision to shake up his team and appoint Bill Stepien as his new campaign manager, may indicate more attacks.

“My reading of this is that Biden is trying to walk a middle line,” she says. “He’s still got a more moderate conservative view on on things like fracking. He’s not going as far as to say there should be a guaranteed job for everybody.”

Larry Sabato, professor of political science at the University of Virginia, said he believed a number of House candidates could ride to victory on Biden’s coattails, if he has a good night.

He also appeared less concerned about the ability of Trump to hurt Biden.

“If Biden were an old-style Southern Democrat the Republicans would still portray him as a wild-eyed liberal,” he says. “I doubt it has much impact. This is where Biden’s bland nature actually helps House Democrats. He’s not scary.”

One area that does not appear to been overly impacted by the coronavirus is the amount of money both parties have been able to collect. House Democrats recently said they collected $39m in the second quarter, even more than they did two years ago.

While Republicans have yet to release the full details, ABC News said that in two of those three months, the GOP collated $22m, twice the amount it raised during the same period in 2018.

“Our second quarter fundraising is proof that Democrats across the country know what is at stake in this election and they are digging deep to ensure we not only protect, but also expand the House Democratic majority,” Bustos said in a statement.

The money will also allow the party to campaign aggressively in parts of the country that polls suggest will not be a waste of resources or time. In particular she highlighted Texas, where Democrats flipped two seats two years ago, and where the so-called “Texodus” of Republican candidates have left several seats up for grabs.

“This is a state that has gone from ruby red to purpleish. And I think in a cycle or two or three, it’s going to be a blue state. And that’s because of changing demographics. It’s more suburban, it’s more college educated, it’s more diverse,” she says. “All of those things go in the direction of more Democrats.”

Bustos, 58, represents Illinois’s 17th District, which includes the city of Peoria. The place has entered political lore since the 1970s when Richard Nixon’s domestic policy adviser, John Ehrlichman, would question his aides as to how a policy may play, not in DC or in the news media, but “in Peoria”. Since then, it has to represent not simply its midwestern location, but also a sense of seeking to do what is achievable.

One of the things that Bustos, 58, is passionate about is expanding access to the ballot. Republicans, spurred on by Trump who admitted if the country switched to all-mail voting “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again”, have long been seeking to limit those who can vote.

Bustos says a legal fund of $10m stands ready to challenge Republican efforts in the court.

“I mentioned our virtual Access Centre [and] interactions that we’ve had with thousands of people all over the country. We are doing that in 25 different languages. So we are looking for every way that we can communicate with people in a way that inspires and it gets them excited about this election.”

She says Democrats do not want to mirror the efforts of Trump to “tamp down the election”.

“Instead of expanding the voters’ access to the ballot box, he’s looking to restrict it,” she says. “And in a democracy, it’s really unconscionable that he’s already trying to close down an election.”