Top congressional Democrats on Wednesday said the party’s coast-to-coast victories on Election Day show that the “door is certainly open” for a similar triumph in the 2018 midterm elections.
“The door is certainly open for us,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters.
She compared President Donald Trump’s present approval ratings to former President George W. Bush’s job approval in 2005.
“In ’05, right now, we have President Bush down to 38 percent,” Pelosi said. “That’s approximately where President Trump is now. That opens the door. That means we get the fresh recruits and they get the retirements.”
Democratic candidates won the House, the Senate and a majority of state-level races in 2006, when Pelosi was nominated as her party’s candidate for House speaker.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Tuesday’s results should worry elected Republicans.
“In 2005, I was head of the DSCC,” he said, referring to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “And you could smell a wave coming. The results last night smell exactly the same way. Our Republican friends better look out.”
