Ami Bera on Why Biden’s Tuesday Was Super for House Democrats

Welcome to a super special Post-Super Tuesday edition of Down Ballot Counts. I'm Kyle Tricks, dad, politics editor at Bloomberg Government, with me as always a senior reporter Greg Jero. Today, we'll dissect what went down on Tuesday and what it means for November, we'll spotlight a TV ad that caught our attention, and then we'll interview Ami Barra, a congressman from California who was on the front lines of the Democratic Party's efforts to retain the House. We're there with 99% of the precincts counted. Number of other key down ballot races. This is a very dramatic turn, we will have to look at it. The House would be in order, chair requests, members clear the aisle, take seats, and cease audible conversation. From Washington, this is Bloomberg Government's Down Ballot Counts. Up first, Jero's Gem. Thank you, Kyle Jero's Gem. My number of the week is 1982. That was the last year Mississippi elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate. Mississippi, I point that out because Mississippi has a congressional primary coming up on Tuesday. Now, Mississippi was once heavily Democratic, but it shifted to the Republicans, like much of the South, the past couple of generations. The state has the nation's largest black population percentage at 36%, and that's a big supply of votes for Democratic candidates, but Mississippi votes Republican in federal elections because it's also culturally conservative, very Protestant, with a low rate of unionization. In a 2018 Senate special election in Mississippi, Democrat Mike Espie, a former congressman and agriculture secretary who's African American, lost a Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by 7.3 percentage points, which was actually the best showing by a Mississippi Democrat in a Senate race since 1982. This year's Mississippi primaries on Tuesdays, I mentioned, and it should confirm, in November matchup and rematch between Hyde-Smith and Espie, non-partisan political analysts give Hyde-Smith the advantage. All right, well, you see there, we're paying attention to every state, even Mississippi, a state that hasn't seen much competition in a while. All right, up next, we're going to dig back down into Super Tuesday, all the results that are in and are sort of in. This is Bloomberg governments, down ballot counts. The big story coming out of Super Tuesday was Joe Biden's surge to front runner status and the swift winnowing of the presidential field to a two-candidate race with Bernie Sanders. The latest to go, Elizabeth Warren, she got out this morning. Meanwhile, the House and Senate playing fields got a little more defined. Greg, give us a couple of big takeaways or surprises. I think the big race I was watching on Tuesday, Kyle, was the Alabama Republican Senate primary. We're all wondering what Jeff Sessions, President Trump's first attorney general, a 20-year Senator trying to reclaim the seat now held by Democrat Doug Jones, how he would fare. I think polls indicated that this race would go to a runoff, that he would not win this primary outright, but still seeing the actual vote returns come in, just gave it a certainty. Sessions won just 32 percent of the vote, came in second place behind Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn football coach who got 33 percent, which means that more than two-thirds of Alabama Republican voters did not vote for their long-time former incumbent Jeff Sessions and he's going to have a tough time holding that seat in the runoff on March 31st and the day after the primary on Wednesday, President Trump got some shot in Freuda in there when he darted off a tweet that basically was, you know, can't say he danced on Sessions' day because he's still in the primary, but he definitely liked to give an elbow to his former attorney general after that 32 percent showing. Yeah, thanks a lot. You know, Sessions was the first member of Congress to support him in his presidential race. You can tell just how mad he still is about Sessions recusing himself from the Russia probe. All right, I've got a spot piece of trivia for you. Let's see. Pop quiz. All right. Tommy Tuberville, I'd say he's favored to win this runoff. That's sort of just looking at, you know, with Trump's tweet and, you know, him finishing ahead in the primary. Who was the last college football coach to serve in Congress? The last college football coach to serve in Congress. Tom Osborne? I think that's right. Yeah. Nebraska coach. I can't think of anyone else. He represented Nebraska's third district, that huge agricultural district from, oh, 2001 until about until oh six until oh six, yeah, they didn't you ran against a governor Dave Heinemann in the primary and lost actually, which is pretty, uh, pretty impressive for Heinemann to, uh, to defeat the proper, I think it's Tom Osborne. It is. I, yeah, he served three terms, uh, and his gubernatorial hopes. Not so good. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, Tom Osborne. Well, I think I agree with you on a Tuberville being the favorite in the, in the runoff. While I, sessions is not technically the incumbent, um, you know, he's, he's got universal name identification. And you have to think like, why would anyone who voted against sessions, uh, you know, there's 68% of people who voted against sessions. You can expect most of them to flock to them now. So I think sessions is probably the underdog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I've got a few myself, um, you know, something we were both watching was all the former's, uh, running to get back to Congress Jeff Sessions was one of them. Only one of the five former members of Congress, uh, running on Tuesday in a primary, uh, appears to not be likely to make it. And that is Steve Knight from California's 25th district. He was, uh, in Northern Los Angeles County, um, and, you know, he was running both in a special election and in the regularly scheduled election, uh, looks like he's going to finish third. But of course, as we talked about, uh, on Monday, California takes a wild account vote. So he's still not technically. He hasn't technically lost yet yet. I think even in California's 50th district where Darryl isa was seeking a comeback. I think he's up by a few points. Last time I, I checked, I don't know if they've officially called that, but it looks like Darryl isa running in a different congressional district than the one he represented for almost 20 years will advance, uh, to the November election against the Democrat who, uh, came close to defeating the previous Republican occupant of that seat, Duncan Hunter. So Darryl isa different district and then another ex member, um, who ran in a much different congressional district. Pete Sessions, uh, no relation to Jeff Sessions, but, uh, he represented a Dallas area district for about, uh, more than 20 years, I think, then, um, lost the seat in 2018. Then on Tuesday, he runs an awakeo area congressional district, a big Republican primary gets about 30% of the vote to finish first. He's going to go to a runoff. It looks like with a Republican businesswoman, Renee Swan, who's endorsed by the retiring congressman from that district, Bill Flores, who is not supporting Pete Sessions. Yeah. That's going to be a fun one to watch. Uh, I, I do think Pete Sessions has grew up there in, in that district, but obviously hasn't lived there. Certainly didn't represent that, uh, for many terms in Congress. Um, and then I, I think the other big story was, uh, Pierce Bush, um, the Sion, the grandson of George H. W. Bush coming in third in Texas's 22nd district down there in Exurban, Houston. A lot of people are looking at that. What does this mean for the bush named? Is it, is this a sign that, you know, doesn't mean as much? In the era of Trump, I think that's obviously true. I don't know if that's why he lost. He also isn't from the district. Uh, I don't think he was even living in there yet. He certainly wasn't living there when he announced for, for the race in December. Um, so he finished his third, you know, kind of a tough loss, and that is a district to watch for Democrats. They are trying to pick that up. That's right. Texas is 22nd district that's anchored in Fort Bend County, a very diverse, uh, area. Um, it's going to be a definitely a race to watch in the, uh, in the fall. You have a Republican runoff, uh, between the sheriff of Fort Bend County, there are in a self-funding, uh, business woman who spent about $4 million of her own money. And uh, while we're still in Texas, I would just go further south to, um, the 28th district Democratic primary where Jessica says, narrows a young immigration attorney backed by some of the more liberal elements of the Democratic Party, almost unseeded veteran blue dog Democratic incumbent Henry Quayar. Yeah. Came really close and, uh, you know, I, I'd say rather than this being, this hurting the progressive movement and, and some of the primaries to come, uh, where they're challenging, uh, more moderate incumbents, I, I bet this is sort of energizing them. She almost pulled this off. She's 26 years old. I'm guessing has never run for office before, um, this could be sort of a shot in the arm for that, for that movement right now. It's a very impressive showing for sure. Uh, K Green, from the 12th district, one more comfortably, 58% to 42% in the Republican primary in Fort Worth, um, and I, the other races I would just mention quickly would be in North Carolina, where you're going to see more, I think opportunities for more women to represent that state in the Congress, um, you had, uh, Democratic women outright win their primaries in the second district in Raleigh and the sixth district in Greensboro. Um, you'll have Democratic women favored to succeed retiring Republican men there in the 11th district or Republican district in Western North Carolina. You have a Republican woman, Linda Bennett supported by the retiring Congressman, Mark Meadows, making it to a runoff there. If she wins that runoff, she'll be favored to win the November election, um, and you could have, so you could have maybe five, as many as five women represent North Carolina in Congress because you already have Virginia Fox, the Republican and Alma Adams, uh, the, the Democrat from Charlotte. So gains for women in North Carolina, you could see November. All right. Yet another reason to watch the Tar Heel State. We will leave it there because up next is our weekly look at a recent campaign ad that stood out to us. Let's take a listen. Doug Collins says he's conservative, but look at his record, a criminal defense lawyer fighting to get bad guys out of jail. In the Georgia House, Doug Collins teamed up with liberals, Stacey Abrams, to let some convicted murderers avoid the death penalty. And in Congress, Doug Collins teamed up with liberals to allow early release for some sex offenders. Doug Collins, a criminal's friend and a conservatives nightmare Senate leadership fund is responsible for the content of this advertising. That was an ad from Senate leadership fund, which is essentially the Super PAC arm for Senate Republican leadership. It's remarkable to see a Republican group target a Republican congressman like this, especially one who is friendly with the president, but Doug Collins is not the party's candidate in Georgia. Leaders have made it clear there was Senator Kelly Leffler, who was recently appointed to the seat and is hoping to win the November special election to fill the remainder of the term. Greg, what did you see here? That's right. As you mentioned, the Senate Republican leadership does not please that Collins has decided to challenge fellow Republican Kelly Leffler, who isn't mentioned in this ad, by the way. She was appointed to the Senate just two months ago and she's concentrating on, you know, airing some ads and building her legislative record. And you don't want to start out negative ads when you're running your own campaign. You want to start building your biography and doing things like that. And that's what she's been doing, airing some positive ads. But if you have a Super PAC ally, they often do the dirty work for candidates. And so they can run the negative ads and you can sort of, as a candidate, stay above the fray. So the fact that didn't mention Leffler was interesting. They go after Collins by linking him to Stacey Abrams, who was Georgia's Democratic candidate for governor in that close 2018 race and a rising star in the party. And I noted it invoked criminal justice policies and legislation. They call Collins like the criminal's best friend or something like that. It refers to a criminal justice overhaul bill he sponsored in the last Congress, 115th Congress, that had actually had a lot of bipartisan sponsors, including Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin. Some other members of Congress, you wouldn't exactly call liberals as some conservative Republicans. So trying to use Collins's bipartisan work with Democrats, including Hakeem Jeffries, to criticize him and try and paint him as a not conservative. Yeah. And just because he was this outspoken upfront on Fox News all the time, supporter of Donald Trump during the impeachment hearings, they want to make sure voters in Georgia know or at least think he's not a conservative. He's not the conservative in the race. That instead is Kelly Leffler, who I think has promised to spend something like $20 million of her own money on the race, which is something I'm sure a Senate Republican leaders like to hear as well, because that makes it just a little bit easier to win that state. Okay. Up next, we'll talk a little more Super Tuesday with Democratic Congressman Ami Barra. From Washington, this is Bloomberg governments down ballot counts. Joining us now is Congressman Ami Barra, a California Democrat. He shares the new Dem action fund, the political arm of the largest ideological caucus in Congress, the new Democrat coalition. Senator Ami Barra, thanks for coming on down ballot counts. Glad to be on. Thanks for having me. Congressman, you endorsed Joe Biden in December. He cleaned up on Tuesday, winning 10 of the 14 states and surging to elite delegates. Bloomberg government and other publications have quoted numerous members of Congress since Tuesday, who were ecstatic about the results. So I want to start there. What does that mean for your efforts to hold the House majority? He knows one of the frontline co-chairs, I think it just made my job a lot easier with the down ballot races. If you think about the scheduled Joe Biden kept in 2018, he traveled to a lot of these districts that we picked up and delivered the majority for us. So he was welcomed openly by a lot of our frontline members, the most vulnerable Democrats. And I think for a lot of those members, there's a big sigh of relief that now that it looks like Joe Biden is on a path to our nominee. And that's because he doesn't turn off swing voters in these districts, right? I mean, his message, he's obviously not pitching Medicare for all and some of the things that Bernie Sanders is. Absolutely. If you look at the issues that our freshmen members who won ran on, it was lowering the cost of prescription drugs, it was making healthcare more affordable, but it wasn't this Bernie Sanders agenda of getting rid of private health insurance or immediately going off of all fossil fuels, et cetera. Those are issues that they get talked about, but they get talked about in more incremental rational way. And if you look at the folks that voted on Tuesday, you saw record turnout, and it's almost the same coalition that delivered us the majority in these suburbs, the folks that came out and voted against Trump, but voted in these freshmen members. You saw that in Virginia, you saw that in North Carolina, you saw that across the board. So, you know, when we talk about expanding the base and the turnout and enthusiasm, Joe Biden is the one who accomplished that and it was the same as what we saw in 2018. A congress with more than 100 members, the new Democrat coalition, what exactly is a new Democrat and how are new Democrats different from, say, blue dog Democrats or congressional progressive caucus Democrats? You know, when there's now 104 of us and we're the largest caucus in the Democratic Party, what a new Democrat is, is we're really problem solvers. We're focused on coming up with pragmatic solutions, you know, we're looking for pro-growth, pro-job agendas and policies, you know, we all as Democrats want to address universal coverage and make sure every American has coverage that they can go, go see a doctor if they get sick, but we're taking an incremental approach that builds off of the Affordable Care Act. You know, we've got policies like auto enrollment, which would get another 10 to 13 million people who qualify for low-cost or no-cost healthcare into the system, but we're not looking for a revolution. We're looking at getting back to an agenda that allows us to govern and move the country forward. And so the new Dem Action Fund is in place to try to help elect and re-elect members who would support policies like that. What exactly does the Action Fund do to support these candidates? You know, the Action Fund will, you know, as candidates, we work with them on making sure they knew how to understand policy, you know, giving them the resources to talk about what take coronavirus and things like that, you know, what are the issues of the day. Now, as members, you know, 32 of the frontline members, better than most fallen roll ones are new Dems. So, we'll help them raise money, we'll give them advice as they put together their campaigns. Yeah, if you look at the D-Triplecy leadership, 11 of the 12 leaders of the D-Triplecy are new Dems. And so there's this real overlap between our leaders, D-Triplecy leaders, and the frontline members. It really is making sure these most vulnerable members get re-elected. And the Action Fund supported a few candidates who had some success on Tuesday. I saw, you know, Wendy Davis and Gina or T's Jones in Texas, they both won their primaries. Those are a couple of top offensive opportunities in November. Yeah, no, and, you know, if you look at one of the California Special Elections, Christy Smith, you know, came out on top of that special election, you know, for the California 25 seats. Overall, it was a pretty good night. What other races are on your radar? Any candidates really stick out, or any races you're closely paying attention to? Yeah, you know, we've got a number of endorsed candidates. You know, we're looking at the Washington 3 race where Carolyn Long is running against Amy Hurr, our Butler, you know, Betsy Durkson-Lonigan and Illinois 13 against Rodney Davis, Dan FT Han and Minnesota 1 against Haggadorn, the open Susan Brooks seat. We've endorsed Christina Hale, mentioned Gina R. T's Jones, you know, the Pennsylvania 10 seat with Eugene DePoswale, Florida 16 seat with Margaret Kid, and then you mentioned Wendy Davis and the Arizona 6 seat with Harold Tipbernini. Some of these are candidates that ran last cycle and came pretty close, and now they're building out pretty strong races, and you know, we're the first caucus to really get out there and endorse candidates. A lot of these are red to blue candidates as well. How does the new Democrat Coalition Action Fund vet candidates and determine whether they are new Democrat material and merit your support? You know, we will ask them about, you know, how they would approach certain policy issue areas like healthcare, prescription drugs, energy policy. They'll go through an interview process with a few of us as well, but then we'll also look at the type of race that they're putting together, what's their plan to win, et cetera. Are they raising the resources necessary to run a competitive campaign? And then, you know, if they're good, ideologic bit with us, we'll go and make that decision to endorse them, and then, you know, we will do what we can to both them raise money for them, but also give them that advice on the policy side as well as the campaign side. And Congressman, you're no stranger to close races in the competitive Sacramento County District, although you won more comfortably in 2018 when seven California Democrats, now in your delegation, flipped competitive districts held by Republicans. Which of your California Democratic freshmen colleagues do flip those seats? Are you races? Which race is there? Are you watching? Which ones do you think will be the most competitive there? You know, I haven't very familiar with those close, cutting edge races where you barely win. I'm glad I'm in a safer spot. You know, when I look at the California Democrats, you know, we know TJ Cox who, you know, beat David Valadeo, Valadeo's running again, that'll be a competitive race. You look at some of the Orange County seats that we picked up, Gilsis Naros, Harley-Rotta, those are going to be competitive races. Not because of anything that Gilla or Harley is doing, you know, they're putting together races running, but you look at the quality of their opponents, you know, in young Kim and Michelle Steele. Those could be close races, you know, someone who is really knocking the ball out of Park Cady Porter, just with her fundraising, and she's really owning that district. Yeah, on paper, that's a competitive district that I think Cady is, you know, doing a remarkable job, making that race a little bit safer this cycle. A little further north, Josh Harder, that's always been a competitive and tough district. Again, Josh is working really hard to do what he has to do to try to make that a slightly safer race. All right, Congressman, last question. We obviously, in 2018 saw just a green wave, just a mass fundraising effort by Democrats and it has continued this cycle. Is this just really a reaction to Donald Trump? Is that what's going on here? It's sort of sparked this green wave across the country among Democratic activists. You know, it's pretty amazing. I used to think of myself as a really good fundraiser, but I look at this freshman class and, you know, it is amazing how much they're able to raise and how much they're outraising their Republican opponents. I think it's partly the Donald Trump effect, but, you know, that they want to hold on to the majority. I also think, you know, it's that online fundraising ability as well, grassroots fundraising. And then, you know, hats off to these freshmen. They are working incredibly hard doing what they have to do to get reelected. So I think it's a combination of all of that. All right. Well, we'll have to leave it there. Congressman Barrett, thank you so much for joining the pod today. Thank you. Have a great day. Be well. All right. You too. This is Down Ballet Counts. Now, before we close the show, we've got a parting shot of trivia for you. That's right. It's trivia time on Down Ballet Counts when I tried to stump Kyle and you, the listeners, with a political trivia question. But first, let's review the question and answer from Monday when our guest was Tom Emmer, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the political arm of the House Republican minority. I asked for the most recent year when Republicans won the House majority away from the Democrats. Kyle, I'm pretty sure you got this right. Well, I shouldn't be politics editor of Bloomberg government if I don't know this. The answer is 2010. Ding, ding, ding. You are correct. And I'm sure you're covering the 2010 election, whatever capacity we're at the time. Of course. That was a fun election year. Republicans made a net gain of 63 seats that year to win the majority. They had lost just four years earlier. As Emmer said in our podcast on Monday, Republicans need a net gain of about 20 seats to win back the majority this November. So congratulations, Kyle and listeners are getting 2010 correct. But I can guarantee you, this week's question will be harder. We spoke earlier in the program with California Congressman Amibera, who heads the New Dem Action Fund and is also among a handful of medical doctors in the Congress. And my question is, who is the only female doctor in Congress? In other words, who is the only woman with an MD degree currently serving in the Congress? That's a good one. It's a harder question than last week's certainly. Think about that and email your answer to begovpodcast at begov.com or you can tweet your answer at the Bloomberg government Twitter handle at begov using the hashtag down ballot pod. We'll reveal the answer and ask a new question on the next episode of down ballot counts. That's it for us today. Before we go, Greg, what else are you watching this week? Kyle, I'm watching the Mississippi Congressional primaries on Tuesday, even though they're mostly pro forma. In this week, we get updated campaign finance reports for candidates running for Congress in Ohio and Illinois, which have primaries on March the 17th that you should be aware of. We'll talk about Ohio and Illinois in our next program. I'll note here that Michael Bloomberg, the majority owner of Bloomberg Government's parent company, also sought the Democratic presidential nomination. He endorsed Joe Biden on March 4th. The producer for down ballot counts as David Schultz. You can follow us on Twitter at KyleTrigstead and at Greg Jero. And be sure to check out all the great politics coverage on Bloomberg Government's website about.begov.com. We'll talk to you soon. Cases and controversies is all about the Supreme Court. Come on. Come on. Well, I agree with you. Serious. We sit down with leading practitioners and scholars to break down these cases. I mean, I'm glad you brought that up, so I didn't have to. Oh, interesting. That is interesting. I guess my imagination is running wild. Tune in every week for our deep dive and sneak peak episodes wherever you get your podcasts. As always, check out the latest at news dot Bloomberg law dot com.