Cheri Bustos: House Democratic campaign chairwoman steps down after attacks from AOC and progressives

Illinois congresswoman only won her own race by 4 percentage points

House Democratic campaigns chairwoman Cheri Bustos is stepping down from that position after the party lost nearly a dozen seats to Republicans in an election year where Democrats had been bullish about adding to their majority.

Ms Bustos’ chaotic two-year stewardship of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has come to an end after accusations that she hired a senior staff that did not reflect the diversity of the party’s broad racial and cross-cultural coalition. And her decision to step down comes amid ongoing feuds between moderates and the left fringe of the party over its direction and message to voters.

Ms Bustos herself only won re-election in Illinois’ 17th congressional district by roughly 4 percentage points, a contest that should not have been close to begin with, Democratic strategists have said.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as a good teammate does, showered praise on Ms Bustos’ leadership despite the underwhelming performance of House Democrats, saying she is viewed by her colleagues and DCCC staff as “a leader of great integrity and inspiration.”

“Strengthened by the values of the heartland, Chairwoman Bustos shaped a mainstream message, mobilised effectively and attracted the resources to do so.  Chairwoman Bustos brought strategic thinking, political astuteness and boundless stamina to Hold The House, with the added challenge of the coronavirus,” Ms Pelosi said.

Blame for House Democrats’ failure to add seats this cycle has been cast by and against all corners of the party in the days after the election.

House Democratic moderates such as Virginia Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger and Pennsylvania Congressman Conor Lamb have assailed progressives such as Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others for promoting politically hazardous slogans such as “defund the police” and the “Green New Deal.”

“No one should say ‘defund the police’ ever again,’” Ms Spanberger told her Democratic colleagues during a heated conference call last week.

Mr Lamb criticised Ms Ocasio-Cortez for tweeting during the final presidential debate that fracking is bad and should be condemned as such by Mr Biden, a touchy issue for voters in Western Pennsylvania, where fracking is a major source of economic growth. Mr Biden does not support a ban on fracking, although he does support a policy to stop handing out any new licensing permits to companies seeking to frack on federal lands.

“That’s not being anything like a team player,” Mr Lamb told the New York Times of Ms Ocasio-Cortez’s approach to politics and the fracking issue. “And it’s honestly giving a false and ineffective promise to people that makes it very difficult to win the areas where President Trump is most popular in campaigns.”

But Ms Ocasio-Cortez has fired back that it’s not her progressive talking points that doomed moderate House Democrats, whom she labelled “sitting ducks” for relying too much on outdated campaign methods such as mailers and TV ads instead of digital and door-to-door messaging.

“Our party isn’t even online, not in a real way that exhibits competence. And so, yeah, they were vulnerable to these messages, because they weren’t even on the mediums where these messages were most potent. Sure, you can point to the message, but they were also sitting ducks. They were sitting ducks,” the freshman Democratic congresswoman told the New York Times.