He Tried Blaming His Own Failures On AOC
The Democrats have the slimmest possible chance to hold the House by one vote. It’s not likely to happen and the fault lies with one person: Wall Street whore Sean Patrick Maloney. Actually, you could say the fault lies with every House Democrat who voted to make someone as incompetent and feckless as Maloney DCCC chair right after the terrible experience of someone just like him heading the committee, Cheri Bustos.
How did Maloney lose the House for the Democrats. Let’s start in New York where his overreach— demanding the Democratic-controlled legislature draw profoundly unfair congressional maps that gave a Republican judge the excuse for stepping in and instituting a far friendlier Republican map than the legislature drew originally and that would have netted the Democrats a gain of 2 seats— instead of a loss of 4.
Maloney’s personal selfish nature caused him to abandon his own seat (NY-18, with a PVI of D+1) to ruthlessly and imperiously move into Mondaire Jones’ seat (NY-17 with a PVI of D+3). The result was that many Democrats— especially in Rockland County which Maloney lost by 10 points— who were outraged by the move sat on their hands and let Maloney lose, while NY-18 is now hanging by a thread for Pat Ryan.
Maloney made the decision to abandon several winnable races where progressives were doing well, cutting them off at the knees. He gave the South Texas 15th district seat where Michelle Vallejo was ahead to MAGAt Monica De La Cruz. McCarthy and the NRCC and its allies (including Democratic Majority for Israel) spent $3.5 million supporting De La Cruz (mostly by smearing Vallejo), while the DCCC spent $95 in the district and Pelosi’s SuperPAC spent $19,995. Vallejo lost by 8 points.
Maloney also decided to stop spending in OR-05 at a point where it was clear progressive Jamie McLeod-Skinner could win. McCarthy spent $6,864,229 smearing McLeod-Skinner as a socialist while the DCCC spent just $1,850,103 before pulling out entirely. This morning, with 84% of the votes counted, the race is still too close to call but with the Republican leading slightly.
Similarly in WA-03, McCarthy didn’t spend a dime to help Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (although Pelosi’s SuperPAC put in $289,656) even though extreme MAGAt Joe Kent was obviously vulnerable after he beat GOP incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler, who had voted to impeach Trump. Right now Gluesenkamp Perez is narrowly leading with 70% of the votes counted but had Maloney spent even modestly to help her, this would have been in the bag.
Having already made his concession statement, Maloney is no doubt looking for a job on K Street or Wall Street and not thinking too hard about all the mistakes he made as DCCC chair. Although he did have time last night to try blaming his shortcomings on AOC. In an interview with Nick Fandos , Maloney said “The last time I ran into AOC, we were beating her endorsed candidate two to one in a primary, and I didn’t see her one minute of these midterms helping our House majority. So, I’m not sure what kind of advice she has, but I’m sure she’ll be generous with it. But let’s be clear, she had almost nothing to do with what turned out to be an historic defense of our majority. Didn’t pay a dollar of dues. Didn’t do anything for our frontline candidates except give them money when they didn’t want it from her. There are other voices who should be heard, especially when suburban voters have clearly rejected the ideas that she’s most associated with, from defunding the police on down. She’s an important voice in our politics. But when it comes to passing our agenda through the Congress, or standing our ground on the political battlefield, she was nowhere to be found.”
AOC beat her MAGA opponent, Tina Forte, 78,788 (70.6%) to 30,661 (27.5%). She also sent a quarter million dollars in checks to dozens of vulnerable Democrats around the country, including conservative Democrats. And in districts where her presence was requested, she showed up to campaign for candidates, like Summer Lee in Pittsburgh and Greg Casar in Austin. Last night on Twitter, she defended her role in the midterms from Maloney’s unwarranted attack.
This morning, one prominent Democratic campaign strategist told me that Maloney’s own loss is almost as valuable to the House Democrats as the victories over GOP incumbents like Yvette Herrell (NM), Steve Chabot (OH) and Mayra Flores (TX). He told me that Maloney was an awful pick and that “the people he brought in to run the D-Trip are a bunch of no-account losers, especially executive director Tim Persico, deputy executive director for campaigns Karen DeFilippi and political director Whitney Larsen… They kept making all the wrong decisions and they lost the House majority to a bunch of elitists and anti-American insurrectionists... Maloney's knee-jerk and pervasive anti-working class perspective has been nothing short of catastrophic for the Democratic Party.”
