POLITICO Playbook Podcast: New Democrats Put Left Flank on Notice Over House Majority

POLITICO's daily politics show The Playbook Podcast opened its Thursday, Oct. 29, episode, titled "Moderates put the left on notice," with the fight over who would steer a Democratic House majority if the party wins control in the Nov. 3 midterm elections. "Leaders of the New Democrat Coalition are confident they'll deliver a Democratic House majority. They have no intention of letting a handful of insurgent newcomers call the shots," the episode description on Apple Podcasts reads. The episode runs about 21 minutes.

On the show, Playbook co-author Will Steakin and POLITICO's Megan Messerly discussed the New Democrats' position, according to that morning's POLITICO Playbook newsletter, published under the headline "A moderate proposal." The episode also covered a New York Times report about efforts to recruit a second Dan Sullivan into Alaska's Senate race, Flávio Bolsonaro's arrival in the United States, and a defamation lawsuit filed by Twitch streamer Hasan Piker against conservative commentator Scott Jennings.

What the New Democrat leaders told Playbook

New Democrat Coalition Chair Brad Schneider of Illinois and NewDem Action Fund Chair Greg Stanton of Arizona told Playbook that moderates expect to deliver the majority and do not intend to let a handful of insurgents on their left flank dictate its agenda. "Our friends who are DSA, when they won in the primaries, of course those were blue-to-blue," Stanton said, referring to the Democratic Socialists of America. "They didn’t win a new seat for our caucus."

Schneider said the coalition could grow to as many as 150 members this cycle, up from 114 today, Playbook reported. Two Democratic nominees who identify as democratic socialists, Melat Kiros of Colorado and Darializa Avila Chevalier of New York, declined to commit to backing House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for speaker on an Oct. 16 episode of POLITICO's The Conversation with Dasha Burns. "If you’re saying that you’ll only support him because of this particular vote or that particular vote, I think that really undercuts him," Stanton told Playbook. Schneider acknowledged that a narrow majority could give the far-left group outsized leverage: "If you’re at 217, each person becomes a kingmaker."

According to Playbook, Schneider called the progressive Medicare for All proposal a "slogan," not a "solution," said he was wary of DSA members' push for an arms embargo on Israel, and said transgender rights "is not the number one issue." The New Democrats also warned against forcing "dumb votes" that could hurt vulnerable members. "A lot of these people are coming in with their minds locked, their positions frozen," Schneider said. "We should stop talking about ideology and talking about results."

Both wings are already organizing

A POLITICO report by Riley Rogerson, published the same morning, said competing wings of the party are "jockeying for position" in phone calls, group chats and strategy sessions. The Congressional Progressive Caucus gathered incumbent and incoming members in Washington for a September retreat run by its chair, Rep. Greg Casar of Texas, the report said. Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois, who is mentoring incoming progressives including Avila Chevalier, Claire Valdez of New York and Kiros, told POLITICO: "There’s going to be some real tension, because we have to move."

On the centrist side, Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey told POLITICO he was eyeing "concrete steps to stop socialists trying to jam the extremist parts of their agenda." Rep. Nikki Budzinski of Illinois, who is running unopposed to chair the New Democrats in the next Congress, said the group's size "will make us a force in determining the Democratic caucus’s agenda." Stanton told POLITICO that every candidate the group endorsed supports Jeffries for speaker, while Kiros did not say in an interview whether she would back him, according to the report. POLITICO's Inside Congress newsletter described the competition under the headline "House Dems' war of the wings is underway."

Earlier in October, CQ Roll Call reported that the New Democrat Coalition Action Fund had endorsed 50 candidates this cycle and that New Democrat-backed candidates made up 36 of the 46 names on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's "Red to Blue" list of top recruits. "We expect that our numbers are going to swell in the next Congress," Stanton told Roll Call.

Alaska's two Sullivans and a $72.5 million lawsuit

The New York Times reported Wednesday, Oct. 28, that people working with Democratic Senate nominee Mary Peltola's campaign and senior aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee took part in efforts to recruit a man named Daniel J. Sullivan into the race against Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, CNBC reported. Peltola's campaign told CNBC that it "has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign," and a DSCC spokesperson said, "The DSCC is not involved with Dan J. Sullivan." President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that "Mary Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done, A FRAUD ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC," POLITICO reported. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in a statement, "By contrast, recruiting candidates to manipulate the field and influence voting outcomes is simply wrong." ABC News reported that Alaska courts found nothing illegal about Daniel J. Sullivan's bid to be on the ballot, and POLITICO noted that the Cook Political Report rates the race a toss-up.

Piker filed a 38-page complaint on Tuesday, Oct. 27, in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleging that Jennings defamed him on an Aug. 11 episode of "The Scott Jennings Show" by playing doctored video from a 2024 livestream, NBC News reported. "Mr. Jennings did not merely mischaracterize something Mr. Piker said," the complaint says, according to NBC News. Piker is seeking $27.5 million in compensatory damages and $45 million in punitive damages. Jennings did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment. Variety reported that, as a public figure, Piker would have to show that Jennings either knew his statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.