OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suffered a major blow this week that could put Republicans one step closer to retiring the California Democrat.
Pelosi has a slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and if Republicans win back the lower chamber, it’s already being reported that she will retire.
With redistricting about to take place across the country — which will result in Republicans picking up some seats — even many Democrats believe they will lose control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections.
Now, a longtime Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Ron Kind has announced that he will not run for re-election.
“The truth is I’ve run out of gas,” Kind told reporters.
Kind, who has served in the U.S. Congress since 1997, is the last Democrat in Wisconsin outside of the Milwaukee and Madison areas.
His seat is seen by many as one that Republicans are primed to flip next November.
Wisconsin Republican Chairman Andrew Hitt on Tuesday said Kind’s time in office was coming to an end, whether he chose to retire or not.
“Ron Kind’s days in Congress have numbered thanks to the tireless efforts of Derrick Van Orden. Republicans are well-positioned to win this congressional seat for the first time in a quarter-century,” Hitt said.
Van Orden, the Republican candidate in Kind’s district, also released a statement.
“I would like to thank Rep. Kind for serving in Washington for the last 24 years, and I wish him the best in his retirement,” Van Orden said. “Our campaign has shown that the people of the 3rd are ready for a proven, tested Leader in Washington who will stand up to Nancy Pelosi’s radical agenda, and ensure that our children and grandchildren will live in a safe and prosperous nation.”
A top House Democrat is warning that the Republican Party is in a prime position to take back the lower chamber in the 2022 midterm elections.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Sean Patrick, who serves as a congressman from New York, says Democrats would lose their House majority if the midterms were held today.
Speaking with Politico, Tim Persico, executive director of the Maloney-led DCCC, shared data with incumbents showing that several House Democrats are at risk of losing their seats to Republican challengers.
“We are not afraid of this data … We’re not trying to hide this,” Persico told Politico. “If [Democrats] use it, we’re going to hold the House. That’s what this data tells us, but we gotta get in action.”
“The point is, to make sure that we’re all on the same page, that we understand the stakes. Here’s the good news: Everything we are doing and everything we’ve talked about doing is incredibly popular,” he added.
Democrats are facing serious headwinds going into next year.
Three-quarters of senior Capitol Hill aides think Republicans are going to win back control of the House of Representatives in the 2021 midterm elections.
Punchbowl News surveyed several senior Capitol Hill aides and reported that a whopping 73 percent think Republicans will take the speaker’s gavel from Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi next November.
Republicans need a net gain of 5 seats to regain the House majority in the midterms next November.
Seventy-five percent of Hill staffers believe Democrats will retain the Senate majority.
This is up five percent from the last survey. Democrats currently have a 50-50 split with Republicans in Congress’s upper chamber.
The GOP has another big advantage now: they are raking in historical amounts of money.
Republicans set a fundraising record for the third month in a row and now have $42.1 million in cash on hand with zero dollars in debt.
House Republicans also have history on their side as they aim to regain the chamber.
The party that controls the White House, which is currently the Democrats, on average loses roughly 25 House seats in the midterm elections.
And the once-in-a-decade redistricting process – pegged to the 2020 census – is expected to generally favor Republicans over Democrats.
