DSCC Attacks House Republicans Eyeing the Senate in ’14
With House Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan set to release his new budget on Tuesday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee warned House Republicans eyeing Senate races that it will use their votes for the plan against them in paid media.
On Monday, DSCC Executive Director Guy Cecil and Democratic pollster Geoff Garin told reporters that the Wisconsin Republican’s previous budget plan hurt GOP Senate candidates last year. Cecil said that all of the post-election analysis has overlooked that fact in favor of a focus on the GOP’s candidate quality problem, polling inaccuracies and, according to the DSCC, faulty messaging.
“We’ll be launching an online media campaign to educate voters on Facebook and other social media,” Cecil said. “We’ll be launching an email campaign to engage our volunteers and our donors in this fight. And really this is the first in several steps to hold Republicans accountable on the air, on the ground, in the mail and online.”
Garin said the biggest takeaway is that the landscape of next year’s midterm elections is far different than in 2010, when voters didn’t have a GOP-controlled branch of government to compare with what Democrats were doing.
“That election was an outlet to express their frustrations with the status quo and the disappointments they felt at that time with President [Barack] Obama and the Democratic Congress,” Garin said. “As we approach the 2014 cycle, we are in a very different place where the Republicans are front-and-center in terms of how people think about American politics.”
National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Brad Dayspring said Democratic incumbents in Louisiana, Arkansas, Alaska, North Carolina, Montana and South Dakota — all states Obama lost in 2012 — will have to answer for their own budget, and he said past efforts to run against the Ryan plan failed.
“House Democrats ran on Ryan in 2010 and 2012, and Nancy Pelosi still is bickering with Steny Hoyer about who gets the bigger small office,” he said. Ryan released a budget “roadmap” in 2010 when Republicans were still in the minority.
Republicans need to pick up six seats next year to take the majority in the Senate.