On Wednesday afternoon, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she doesn’t think 2020 frontrunner Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) would put Democratic control of the House in jeopardy if he were to win the nomination.
“Yes,” Pelosi replied when NBC News reporter Alex Moe asked if she would be comfortable with Sanders becoming the Democrats’ nominee.
“Do you have any concerns that you could lose the majority?” Moe asked.
“No,” the Democratic leader said.
In a separate interview with reporters, Pelosi expressed confidence in whatever outcome the presidential primary brings.
“I think whoever our nominee is, we will enthusiastically embrace, and we will win the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives,” she said, according to the Washington Post.
Some Democrats have grown uneasy as Sanders continues to rise in the race, believing that the senator’s deeply left-wing platform could alienate moderate voters and hinder the party’s efforts to keep the House and flip the Senate.
Several of Sanders’ 2020 rivals have attacked him on that front, including former Vice President Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg.
During the primary debate on Tuesday night, Buttigieg argued that the Democrats who turned the House blue in 2018 are “running away from [Sanders’] platform as fast as they possibly can” to save their seats.
Madam Speaker, blink three times if you’re being held against your will.
What do reporters expect her to say? Wanna instigate a fight? Geez.
"…the senator’s deeply left-wing platform could alienate moderate voters and hinder the party’s efforts to keep the House and flip the Senate."
See, I keep hearing and reading this. The notion that anything ‘too far left’ will “Lose the center”. And I’m just not buying it. (I’m a Warren fan, but happy to vote Bernie. Better still a double ticket)
One could argue as easily - that some ‘centrist’ nominee cough Bloomberg/Biden - would just as easily LOSE the progressives. The assumption seems to be that true ‘lefties’ will vote blue no matter who - and those ‘true centrists’ IE unicorn independents - will need to be coddled at the expense of the left.
Joke 'em. I think it’s a false narrative.
They HAD a centrist Dem as President - Obama - and they voted for an outright pussy-grabbing fascist. They don’t really WANT a “Republican light” corporaDem to vote for.
This is exactly right. No way that Pelosi can say “bernie is death” she has to represent the entire caucus. Her answer was a counter balance to what Clyburn did today. Don’t think for a moment that it was not carefully planned out.
Pelosi knows who are her majority (40 folks, none of which are “progressives” - with one partial exception - who were elected in swing districts) but she is trying too keep OAC, etc on side while being able to say if a liberal (and Buttigieg, Biden, Klobacher are all liberals, not moderates) is the nominee that she did not put her finger on the scale to try to steal it from Bernie.
I hear Bernie prefers one of the Castro brothers as his running mate.