Dem
47
GOP
53
Do you recognize this person?
If you said: "Of course, that is Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA)," give yourself a pat on the back (but be careful not to twist your arm). She is somewhat low-profile to the average voter, but very well known by all members of the House and wannabe members of the House. Before being elected to Congress in 2012, she helped found several startups, including drugstore.com, and was later a high-ranking executive at Microsoft. She is now chair of the DCCC (for the second time) and the point person in the Democrats' drive to capture the House.
She recently made it known that she might well meddle in Democratic primaries in swing districts in order to ensure that the strongest general-election candidate wins the primary. In swing districts, this will invariably be a moderate. In other words, given a choice between an Abigail Spanberger clone and a Zohran Mamdani clone, her money, well, the DCCC's money, will be on the Spanberger clone. This will not make progressives happy.
Traditionally, neither party's House and Senate committees have meddled in primaries much, but those days are ending. DelBene's goal is to win the House and that will guide all her decisions. She did note that she will not interfere in dark-blue districts, where any Democrat, moderate or progressive, will automatically win. In effect, she put progressives on notice that they are free to try to win primaries in D+10 and bluer districts that are not in danger, but kindly stay out of districts the Democrats could lose with too progressive a candidate.
She has interfered in primaries before, but there could be more this time because the stakes are so high. For example, last cycle the DCCC backed Janelle Bynum in the primary against the Congressional Progressive Caucus' favorite Jamie McLeod-Skinner in OR-05, a D+4 district. Bynum won the primary and the general election.
Another factor that DelBene didn't address is not moderate vs. progressive but young vs. old. It is clear the Democratic base wants generational change. In many cases, the young candidate is more progressive than the older one, but not always. In the Massachusetts Senate primary, for example, the much younger candidate, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), is not as progressive as the 79-year-old Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA). If that happens in a House race, DelBene will go with the one she thinks has the best chance in the general election. (V)