Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday that House Democrats are aiming to pick up around 30 seats in the upcoming November elections, framing the midterm vote as a direct referendum on the presidency.
Speaking with Politico’s Jonathan Martin during a Politico Summit, the California Democrat outlined her expectations for the party as they seek to reclaim control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
While Democrats need to net just three seats to secure a majority and make Representative Hakeem Jeffries the Speaker of the House, Pelosi stated that her target goes significantly beyond that baseline.
“We need three to have the majority, for Hakeem Jeffries to be the speaker, and he will,” Pelosi said. “I’ve run each seat ten times that, like 30, but I’ll take more. Number 30 is my goal.”
Pelosi referenced the 2018 midterm elections, when Democrats flipped 40 seats following Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election victory, noting that 31 of those gains occurred in districts Trump had carried.
During the event, Pelosi cited the constitutional design of the legislative branch, arguing that the country’s founders structured two-year terms specifically to allow voters to pass immediate judgment on the sitting administration.
“They wanted the House to be a referendum on the president immediately,” Pelosi said. “He gets elected for four years later, within two years there is an election to be a referendum on ourselves, but also on the president. And that’s what we have right now, a referendum on whatever’s happening in the White House right now, and that’s why we have to win big.”
When asked by Martin whether winning double-digit seats defines what “winning big” looks like for the party this fall, Pelosi agreed, framing a larger seat pickup as the goal for November.
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