Stopping in 'battleground Georgia,' Pelosi expresses confidence for November
Stopping in 'battleground Georgia,' Pelosi expresses confidence for November
September 2, 2022
Also in today’s edition of Swing State Georgia:
Newt Gingrich gets an unexpected Jan. 6 letter.
The ad knives are out between Warnock and Walker.
Marjorie Taylor Greene wins again.
With their party’s prospects looking brighter of late for November, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stopped in Georgia on Thursday with a message - Democrats aren’t rolling over in this year’s midterm elections.
“We have never, ever thought that the Democrats would not hold the House,” Pelosi declared at a news conference in Atlanta.
The Speaker also made sure to give a boost to the reelection bid of U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, whose 2nd Congressional District in southwest Georgia was redrawn to be more competitive for Republicans in 2022.
“His race is very important to us. It’s of the highest priority, and it would make a big difference to the people that he represents,” Pelosi said of the 30-year veteran of the House. “He has his vision and he has his goals. And he knows how to work with members to get the job done.”
Bishop is locked in a tight race against Republican Chris West in a southwest Georgia district. Democrats probably need to keep that seat if they’re going to hold off GOP efforts to win back control of the Congress.
In her Georgia stop Pelosi wasn’t giving any signs of election vulnerability - as always, on message.
“We are ready organizationally, we are ready financially, we are ready message-wise, and we fully intend to win,” Pelosi told reporters.
In a joint interview with U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, Pelosi expressed confidence that Democrats would maintain control of the chamber despite a tough political climate for the party in power.
“We’ve been preparing since December 2020. We have been mobilizing at the grassroots level to own the ground to get out that vote, because that’s the most important thing,” she said. “We’ve been raising the money that’s necessary to do so.”
“When the Dobbs decision came down, people said, ‘Oh, you got lucky,’” Pelosi said of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned the constitutional right to abortion. “But no, we made our own luck. We have been ready for this.”
That’s when Williams chimed in: “I don’t believe in the luck game. I’ve said for a couple of cycles we were battleground Georgia.”
Or as we call it, Swing State Georgia.
HOME COOKED ADVICE. In a lighter moment, Pelosi said Rep. Nikema Williams also offered some sage counsel to her Democratic colleagues in Congress.
“The members know — when she speaks, they listen,” Pelosi said of Williams.
“You know some of the best advice she gave, when we were making calls for candidates?”
“Don’t fake a southern accent.”
INFRASTRUCTURE. Pelosi was in Atlanta on Thursday to promote federal initiatives designed to reconnect communities which were torn apart by busy highways - often because of segregation policies.
Our Insider Greg Bluestein has more:
The Downtown Connector cuts a jagged scar through the historic Sweet Auburn neighborhood. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s first impression of the busy highway that roars through the area: “Who thought that was a good idea?”
A relic of 1950s-era infrastructure policy, Democratic lawmakers are now trying to reconnect some communities divided by rampant highway building. Billions of dollars have been set aside in federal packages to stitch together isolated neighborhoods.
U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, who led Pelosi on a tour of historically Black neighborhoods, said it’s needed to restore the network of streets “intentionally decimated” by segregationist building practices more than a half-century ago.
“Community has the word unity in it,” Pelosi said. “And that's why the Reconnecting Communities pilot is so important to all of us.”
This type of visit by Pelosi is what Democrats hope to replicate in cities all over the country in the next nine weeks before Election Day, hammering home a variety of legislative accomplishments by President Biden and the Congress.
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LISTEN UP. In the Friday edition of the Politically Georgia podcast, we look at the political fallout from this week’s hospital closure announcement in Atlanta, along with the latest from the campaign trail with Democrats Stacey Abrams and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock. And we also open up the Politically Georgia listener mail bag.
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HOSPITAL POLITICS. The surprise closure of the Atlanta Medical Center is looming large in the races for governor and U.S. Senate.
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