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EXCLUSIVE – As she builds her game plan to recapture the House majority from the Republicans, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) claims Republicans are too focused on Hunter Biden and messaging bills and are ignoring issues important to voters.
Republicans "are not at all focused on addressing the issues of our families. They’re focused on politics and ideology. They have no plan," Washington state Rep. Suzan DelBene said in an exclusive interview with Fox News.
DelBene, who took over as DCCC chair less than a month ago, noted that "we’re continuing to put together our battlefield," starting with a target list of 18 House districts that Biden won in 2020, but are now held by Republicans.
"We have 18 seats across the country that Republicans are in right now that [President] Biden won in 2020," DelBene explained.
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Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington State is the new chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (Office of Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington State)
When asked about the House GOP push to investigate President Biden’s administration and whether Hunter Biden tried to influence his father’s politics through business deals in China and Ukraine, DelBene said that people on the campaign trail last year wanted to talk about health care, childcare, the economy, food and housing.
"They weren’t talking about wanting to investigate the president’s son," DelBene said.
Of the 18 seats on the Democrats' target list, six are in New York — including the 3rd District of New York, represented by embattled serial fabricator Rep. George Santos — and five are in California. On the other hand, five House seats in districts former President Trump won in 2020 are currently held by Democrats.
Republicans controlled the House majority for eight years before the Democrats won back the chamber in the 2018 midterms. In the 2020 elections, the GOP defied expectations and took a big bite out of Democrats’ majority. The GOP won control of the chamber during November’s elections, but hopes of a red wave never materialized, and the party is holding onto a fragile 222-212 majority, with a heavily blue seat temporarily vacant. That means Democrats likely will need a net gain of just five seats to win back control of the House in next year’s elections.
The balance of power between Democrats and Republicans in the 118th Congress, from the U.S. House of Representatives Press Gallery (U.S. House of Representatives Press Gallery)
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Pointing to the House GOP’s brief tenure so far in the majority, DelBene charged that "they have only been focused on messaging bills and politics… They’ve been focused on their extreme ideology."
The National Repubilcan Congressional Committee, the DCCC's GOP counterpart, disagrees
"House Democrats lost the majority by placing their extreme liberal ideology over the practical concerns of voters. It’s clear they’ve learned nothing. Hakeem Jeffries seems determined to spend his time as Minority Leader carrying water for an unpopular president and reminding voters why they took away Democrats’ gavels in the first place." NRCC communications Director Jack Pandol charged in a statement to Fox News.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told Fox News last week that "the American people sent a message to Washington last November, and we are committed to delivering on this mandate." Additionally, he stressed that "House Republicans have hit the ground running."
Cook Political Report, a top non-partisan political handicapper, gave the GOP a slight edge over the Democrats last week as it released its first ratings for the 2024 landscape, with 10 Democratic held seats listed as toss-ups, compared to nine for Republicans.
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., conducts a news conference in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
As she works to win back the majority, DelBene highlighted that "we had historic legislation pass last Congress" and that "this cycle we’ll see a lot of things implemented across the country," which she argued will make a tangible impact on people. "We want to make sure people understand the work we’ve done to deliver for families and communities across the country."
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"People across the country want to see governance work. They want to see us tackle the challenges that we face. They want to understand that we have to come together. And I think with Democratic leadership we did that. We passed bipartisan legislation," DelBene said.
Following Biden's State of the Union address Tuesday, DelBene highlighted Democrats' focus on the "historic progress" made in the past two years.
McCarthy, however, responded to Biden's address with a message that the difference between the GOP and Democrats couldn't be clearer. "Republicans offer a vision for a future built on freedom, not fear-mongering," McCarthy tweeted.
House Republicans passed a resolution last week condemning socialism as a fundamental threat to American prosperity and independence. The messaging bill split House Democrats and Republicans quickly targeted the roughly 100 Democratic lawmakers who opposed the measure.
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"That kind of says where Republicans are at," DelBene said as she pointed to the resolution.
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