The House's Progressive Caucus Will Be Bigger Than Ever In 2019
The liberal wing of the Democratic caucus in the U.S. House is going to be bigger than ever when the new Congress starts in January. It’ll be much larger than the conservative wing, and that has major implications, both for the next two years and potentially for 2021.
“Duh,” you might say, “of course there are more liberal than conservative Democrats.” But the two wings used to be much more equally matched. And 2018 represented a big jump in the progressive ranks.
In 2010, when Democrats last controlled the House, there were 80 House members in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a bloc of the most liberal members of the House and Senate, according to a caucus spokesperson. The Blue Dog Coalition, a group of the most conservative House Democrats, stood at 54 members. And the conservatives rivaled the liberals in influence. The Affordable Care Act, for example, grew more conservative in a number of ways thanks to pressure from conservative Democrats.
But many of the Blue Dogs back then represented more conservative-leaning areas, particularly in the South. Between 2010 and 2016, more than two dozen of them either lost re-election bids or retired from the House (often anticipating defeats). Even amid the Democratic wave this year, the number of Blue Dogs will likely only grow from 18 to 24. (More newly elected members could join the Blue Dogs later.) Meanwhile, the Progressive Caucus ranks held steady during the Obama years (these members tend to be in fairly liberal districts), so the group stood at 78 members before the 2018 midterms. That number will grow to 96 in 2019, according to the group, as a number of progressive candidates won in previously Republican-held districts.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-houses-progressive-caucus-will-be-bigger-than-ever-in-2019/
