Greg Casar said what?

No, actually Jayapal would not have won the presidency

After being elected chair of the Progressive Caucus today, Greg Casar led with a doozy:

“If the Democratic Party was a little more like Chairwoman Jayapal and a little less like Joe Manchin, I think we would have won this election”

Joe Manchin won his last Senate race in West Virginia with 50% of the vote against Patrick Morrissey, who won 46% of the vote. This year, Harris lost West Virginia with 28% of the vote while Trump took in 70%.

That means Manchin over-performed Harris in the state by a whopping 46 points (!). For context, Tester over-performed by 13 points this cycle. 

Joe Manchin is an electoral behemoth, the likes of which we would be oh so lucky to see again.

Pramila Jayapal is… not. This year, Harris won Jayapal’s district by 74.5, while Jayapal won by only 68.4, a 6 point underperformance. 

So, who do we listen to? The person who overperformed Harris by 46 points, or underperformed by 6 points?

It’s not clear that Jayapal’s brand of politics is even that exciting to Democratic voters — her sister lost a primary this year 47% to 33% against mainstream Democrat Maxine Dexter. Two squad members, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, lost primaries to mainstream Democrats. 

Progressive Senators underperformed this year: Warren ran 6 points behind Harris, and Sanders ran a point behind (the only two incumbents to underperform Harris). 

It seems that being represented by a Squad member can actually make a district more conservative. Ayanna Pressley’s district in Massachusetts has swung to the right during her tenure. Ilhan Omar has consistently been one of the worst performing Democrats in the House and this cycle ran 12 points behind Harris (Harris won by 62 points, Omar by 50).

Our view at Welcome is simple: listen to the winners and the over-performers. Ignore those who run behind the ticket. Jayapal and other progressives consistently run behind even weak national performers like Harris. Jared Golden and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez outperform even winning national Democrats, like Biden in 2020. They welcome independents into the coalition by taking common sense positions on issues like domestic energy, budget deficits and student loans, while progressives drive them out with extreme views like defunding the police.

We don’t need more Jayapals; we need more Manchins.