Stunned By Congressional Losses, Democrats Debate The Future
Consider This from NPR
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4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 23 November 2020
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger speculated about why in a Nov. 5 conference call, audio of which was obtained by The Washington Post.
NPR's Juana Summers reports that the young, activist coalition that voted for Joe Biden plans to pressure his administration to deliver on bold, progressive policies.
Outgoing Democratic Sen. Doug Jones tells NPR that bold action in Washington won't be possible without appealing to a broad swath of voters.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The good news for Democrats this election was the White House. |
| 0:04.3 | The bad news was just about everywhere else. |
| 0:08.4 | That's Democratic Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger of Virginia in a conference call with House |
| 0:23.2 | Democrats from November 5th, the audio was leaked to the Washington Post. |
| 0:28.0 | It was a tense call because Democrats had been forecast to gain seats in the House, expanding |
| 0:33.3 | their majority. |
| 0:34.8 | But instead, the math was brutal. |
| 0:41.4 | At least 10 Democratic incumbents lost their races. |
| 0:45.7 | Some in districts Hillary Clinton won in 2016. |
| 0:50.5 | Democrats kept their majority, but it shrunk. |
| 0:53.9 | Spanberger said she almost lost her own race in a district that's only been |
| 0:58.0 | controlled by Democrats for two of the last 20 years. |
| 1:01.7 | Spanberger flipped it blue in 2018. |
| 1:04.9 | This year, she said, she met voters who were wary of Democrats because of one thing. |
| 1:11.2 | Defunding the police. |
| 1:12.3 | Defunding the police. |
| 1:14.5 | She said Democrats let Republicans paint them with false attacks about socialism or defunding |
| 1:19.8 | police. |
| 1:20.8 | If we don't mean we should defund the police, we shouldn't say that. |
| 1:29.7 | And we need to not ever use the word socialist or socialism ever again. |
| 1:34.7 | Because while people think it doesn't matter, it does matter. |
| 1:37.9 | And we lost whoever because of that. |
... |
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