House Democrats choose the PNW’s own Suzan DelBene as the next DCCC chair

Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Suzan Del­Bene will be the next chair of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gres­sion­al Cam­paign Com­mit­tee (DCCC), incom­ing cau­cus Leader Hakeem Jef­fries of New York has decided.

The DCCC, the arm of the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus respon­si­ble for can­di­date recruit­ment, can­di­date sup­port, and elec­tion­eer­ing oper­a­tions against Repub­li­can can­di­dates, will be focused on try­ing to reclaim a major­i­ty in 2024 after Repub­li­cans nar­row­ly flipped con­trol of the cham­ber in the midterms.

An inde­fen­si­bly over­hyped “red wave” failed to mate­ri­al­ize, but Democ­rats could­n’t defend vul­ner­a­ble incum­bents like Tom O’Haller­an of Ari­zona, Cindy Axne of Iowa, and Sean Patrick Mal­oney of New York, the lat­ter being the most recent DCCC chair, who weath­ered a lot of crit­i­cism con­cern­ing strat­e­gy and tactics.

Del­Bene, first elect­ed to the House ten years ago to suc­ceed Jay Inslee (now the Gov­er­nor of Wash­ing­ton State), rep­re­sents NPI’s home con­gres­sion­al dis­trict, Wash­ing­ton’s 1st, which was recent­ly redrawn by the 2021 Wash­ing­ton State Redis­trict­ing Com­mis­sion to be a safe Demo­c­ra­t­ic district.

Before that, it had been drawn to be a swing dis­trict, but Del­Bene had made it look like a blue one with a series of com­mand­ing elec­toral per­for­mances, includ­ing in 2014, which was a dread­ful cycle for Democ­rats. (That year, they lost con­trol of the Sen­ate to Mitch McConnell and failed to retake the House.)

Del­Bene, who has a rep­u­ta­tion as prag­mat­ic and effec­tive law­mak­er and strate­gist, will now assume the impor­tant, weighty respon­si­bil­i­ty of craft­ing and imple­ment­ing a strat­e­gy for reclaim­ing the House major­i­ty in 2024.

Jef­fries could­n’t have picked any­one bet­ter for the role if you ask me.

Our team has worked with Del­Bene for years; she reg­u­lar­ly speaks at NPI’s events and sup­ports our research and advo­ca­cy. A deter­mined advo­cate for poli­cies our coun­try needs, like the Child Tax Cred­it, she has served on the Ways & Means Com­mit­tee since before Democ­rats won their last major­i­ty in 2018.

Del­Bene is thought­ful, approach­able, exer­cis­es good judg­ment, and has a track record of get­ting results. If any­one can build a bet­ter DCCC, it’s Suzan.

Hope­ful­ly, she’ll act quick­ly to put an end to the absolute­ly nau­se­at­ing doom and gloom emails that the DCCC reg­u­lar­ly sends out to its sup­port­er list, which have need­less­ly alien­at­ed donors and hurt the DCC­C’s reputation.

Her work with Rep­re­sen­ta­tive-elect Marie Glue­senkamp Perez of south­west Wash­ing­ton — who flipped a Repub­li­can seat blue right here in the Pacif­ic North­west — helped con­vince Jef­fries that she should be the next DCCC chair.

Del­Bene believed in Glue­senkamp Perez, con­sid­ered the dis­trict to be flip­pable, and worked to secure resources for her can­di­da­cy, as you can see from the pho­to below tak­en back in Octo­ber at a house par­ty for Glue­senkamp Perez.

Oth­ers under con­sid­er­a­tion includ­ed Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Ami Bera and Tony Cár­de­nas. The pick was Jef­fries’ to make after the cau­cus vot­ed to make the job an appoint­ed rather than elect­ed one. His deci­sion was announced today.

“Suzan is a bat­tle-test­ed, for­mer Front­line mem­ber who brings to the DCCC role a sharp polit­i­cal instinct, proven fundrais­ing abil­i­ty as well as seri­ous man­age­ment and oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence inside and out­side gov­ern­ment,” said Jeffries.

“In the last decade, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Del­Bene won a tough seat as a Red-to-Blue can­di­date, held a tough seat as a Front­line can­di­date and then put that tough seat out of reach. Suzan has also recent­ly served in key DCCC lead­er­ship roles, includ­ing as Finance Co-Chair in 2018 when we suc­cess­ful­ly reclaimed the House Major­i­ty and Front­line Co-Chair in 2020 when we suc­cess­ful­ly defend­ed it.”

Jef­fries’ state­ment went on to explic­it­ly cite Del­Bene’s work to flip WA-03.

“DelBene’s keen polit­i­cal instincts were on full dis­play this cycle when Suzan was one of the first and only Mem­bers to flag that Democ­rats could win in Washington’s Third Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict. She then went to work and helped elect incom­ing Con­gress­woman Marie Glue­senkamp Perez in a rur­al and exur­ban dis­trict that long elud­ed the grasp of Democ­rats. As DCCC Chair, Suzan is ready to hit the ground run­ning and build upon our unprece­dent­ed suc­cess this cycle.”

“It’s an hon­or to be select­ed by Leader Jef­fries to serve as DCCC Chair for the 2024 cycle,” Del­Bene respond­ed. “I’m ready to get to work with our new lead­er­ship team and all cor­ners of our Cau­cus to win back the House Major­i­ty. Democ­rats are ded­i­cat­ed to show­ing Amer­i­cans that gov­er­nance can work, advanc­ing the poli­cies that will make a dif­fer­ence to fam­i­lies, work­ers and com­mu­ni­ties, and push­ing back against MAGA Repub­li­can extrem­ism and chaos.”

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Del­Bene on being cho­sen for this impor­tant respon­si­bil­i­ty. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty is sure to ben­e­fit from her leadership.