‘Significant discontent’: Pelosi faces colleagues in post-election caucus call after Democrat House majority slashed
Centrist Democrats are calling for speaker Pelosi to be replaced
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Your support makes all the difference.An under pressure Nancy Pelosi faces her Democratic colleagues today for the first time after Tuesday's elections when the party saw its House majority slashed.
House Democrats are scheduled to meet for a caucus call as the party conducts a post mortem into a disappointing election for its congressional House candidates.
Speaker Pelosi has come under fire after the party saw its House advantage significantly reduced rather than extended, as Democrats expected.
Democrats believed they could pick up between five and 15 House seats in this year's election.
Instead, the party has lost five House seats while Republicans gained six, according to Associated Press's latest reporting.
The GOP also looks set to hang onto the Senate. That, coupled with a reduced House majority, could make it difficult for Democrats to get business done if Joe Biden is elected president.
Anger has been fomenting within the party over the results and some more moderate Democrats are calling for speaker Pelosi to be replaced.
“Pelosi needed to hammer Trump but instead she chose to let him slide,” one such Democrat told The Hill on Wednesday. “Last night should have been a bloodbath for Republicans.”
Moderate Democrats say the party's increasing shift to the left is putting off regular Americans who are “clearly afraid of 'socialism'.”
“It’s time for Democrats to elevate a new generation of leadership in both the House and the Senate,” said another centrist Democrat.
“Americans...want safe streets and neighbourhoods and to vote for people who they believe will help put more money in their pockets. While Democratic policies can adequately address those issues, our messaging mechanism clearly cannot.”
That lawmaker's comments may have been a veiled attack on more progressive Democrats, such as representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is considered on the left of the party.
Congresswomen Ocasio-Cortez is aligned with party figures such as Bernie Sanders, who lost out to Joe Biden in the party's presidential nomination process.
Centrist Democrats say the progressive politics espoused by both figures put off Americans in more rural areas, where voters are more concerned with "bread and butter" issues such as the economy and taxes.
Speaker Peolsi, who is widely expected to seek another term, is in control of today's caucus and has a history of quelling discontent among House Democrats.
But with the presidential contest still not decided, that unrest could grow in the coming days.
There are whisperings on Captiol Hill that some Democrats may suggest delaying the leadership election until the full scale of the House results have been examined.
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