Democratic leaders enter the midterms ‘confident and paranoid’

By Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN

Virginia Beach, Virginia (CNN) — No part of a rolling, decadelong existential crisis is ever easy, even when things seem on the cusp of going well — and especially when Democrats have had their hopes raised and dashed so many times.

“It’s a little bit of deja vu,” said Elaine Luria, who in 2018 flipped Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District in the Democratic midterm wave during Donald Trump’s first term, held onto it in a squeaker in 2020 to help make up a slim majority, lost it in 2022 as part of Republicans winning their own small majority, and is now running to get it back.

“If you see how people are feeling today, the energy on the ground — the second time around living through this hell of the Trump administration … people want change,” Luria said. “They can’t take it anymore.”

The path to a Democratic majority runs through this district, Luria said onstage in the small theater of Batten University. Early voting data suggests Democrats are outperforming Republicans. The energy within the party is bubbling.

Internal polls described to CNN have Democratic leaders already smiling about how the midterms seem to be ending, even as they will bare-knuckle through the results as they come in Tuesday. They will enter the midterms with a 9-point advantage over Republicans in the generic congressional ballot, according to CNN’s Poll of Polls.

“Republicans are closing talking about ballrooms and backsides. That’s the disarray the Republicans are in,” said New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader who joined Luria on Saturday, taking a swipe at Trump’s remake of the White House and his reviews of Republican physiques.

After Jeffries spoke, the crowd filed out grabbing signs and other campaign material, heading out to knock a few more doors. Jeffries was heading to a plane to try to save the seat of Rep. Shomari Figures, whose Alabama district Republicans targeted after the Supreme Court’s decision hollowing out the Voting Rights Act this spring.

“There are going to be so many close races that you can’t predict — my guess is at least 20, the loser will get 49% — so it’s just going to be difficult to predict,” said Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia as he left the Luria rally, describing himself as upbeat but unsure.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen chaired the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm in 2018, when the party successfully defended several Senate seats it had been projected to lose while falling short of a majority. The Maryland senator said those elections were dominated by distraught Democrats talking about “the resistance.”

This year, as he’s been out campaigning from New Mexico to Georgia to New Hampshire, Van Hollen said, he’s been seeing a broader turn from those who backed Trump for a second term because they wanted the lower prices and end to foreign wars he promised.

“This time what’s different is on these promises that candidate Trump made that helped him win votes among his coalition, he’s done a 180,” Van Hollen told CNN.

Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor and congressman who helped oversee the campaigns that led to the midterms romp during George W. Bush’s second term, said the sense he’s getting from voters is different from 2006. He believes there is a backlash from Americans enraged by corruption, particularly among Black and Latino voters.

In 2006, “the emotion was disappointed, tired,” Emanuel said. “Here, it’s anger and bitterness. And that tells you something about the motivation.”

That doesn’t mean Emanuel is going into Tuesday fully confident that the polls aren’t missing the level of support for Trump and Republicans and that turnout won’t bring surprises as the precinct breakdowns come in.

“I keep checking to make sure we’re not all talking to each other. So I’m walking around looking for anything, ‘Please give me a negative,’” Emanuel said. To his fellow Democrats anxious that they’re about to be disappointed again, Emanuel added, “You might be right, but you may want to use that energy in a productive way rather than sitting around. Text, email, phone call, stand in the middle of the highway. I don’t care what you do, but just use it. There’s nothing productive getting done by being sitting there and being nervous.”

Operatives in both parties have been stunned at the cynicism coming across in focus groups, spanning every geographic, demographic, age and political category. Politics is, to many, seen as a game for the insiders in a world that looks more and more like a playground for the rich and powerful, with everyone else left behind while their costs go up and their lives get worse.

The candidates are hearing it all on the trail, in supermarket aisles, or when showing up to vote early themselves. Anger, disappointment, abandonment — that’s what’s coursing through American voters as they head to the polls.

Will Democrats make the most of the moment?

“Confident and paranoid” is how Washington state Rep. Suzan DelBene, the chair of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, described her mindset going into Tuesday.

Netting the three seats that would put her party in the majority seems a given to DelBene — but then again, she went through the final days of the election two years ago, when the majority also felt in reach. The paranoia, she says, comes from the ways she can see Trump trying to interfere with the election results.

DelBene ticked through conversations she’s been having on the trail, from an early voting center in an Ohio district that Democrats believe they can hold to a Meals on Wheels location in an Arizona district they are hoping to flip. At every stop, she says, the economic pain is palpable. At every stop, she tries to get voters to believe that Democrats are ready to come in with some real solutions.

Voting early last week, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb said he talked to a woman who was lamenting how the price of her groceries and prescriptions have gone up. She brought her whole family with her to the polling place. To her, that seemed like the only thing to do. But Bibb said he’s worried Democrats gleeful about big wins are going to misunderstand why she and others bothered to give voting one more chance.

He understands the cynicism out in the country, Bibb said. He hopes other Democrats do too, and he’s already starting to organize with fellow mayors on how to press Washington, DC, to respond if and when the results come in as he’s hoping.

“We can’t miss this moment with just hearings and impeachment proceedings,” Bibb said. “People need to see their pocketbooks improve.”

Before anyone starts counting committee chairmanships, Van Hollen said, first they need to actually win. As he stumps around the country, the senator often ends by telling the story of the 2017 races for the Virginia House of Delegates. At the end, control was decided by one seat, and the election of that seat was a tie, leaving it decided under state law by a game of chance —in the case, drawing slips of paper out of a bowl. Republicans won.

“I would not rely on these polls,” Van Hollen said. “My plea is: Don’t take anything for granted, don’t let control come down to one campaign.”

That can be hard for the voters and candidates and leaders alike. DelBene says she’s been spending the final stretch of the campaign doing a lot of pep talks.

“It’s a very stressful time. Folks are tired. They’ve been working incredibly hard,” DelBene said. “I have a lot of conversations with folks just to say, ‘Keep going.’ The one thing about an election is: There is an end date.”

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