A number of frustrated House Democrats who said their party had a “weak and undefined brand” announced on Tuesday that they had formed a new group to dig out of their crisis, called the New Economic Patriots.
The group is the brainchild of Representative Chris Deluzio, a 40-year-old freshman from a competitive district in Pennsylvania, who criticized members of his own party as wimps in a speech on the House floor on Tuesday and called for Democrats to channel a “fighting spirit of economic populism” that he argued could lead them out of the political wilderness.
“Too many in our party have lost their way and it’s time to wake the heck up,” Mr. Deluzio said, later declaring: “The era of a spineless Democratic Party must end.”
The answer, he said, was for the party to focus on appealing to working people on economic issues, but it was not immediately clear how his plan was different from what many in the party have already been advocating. Still, Mr. Deluzio’s effort is the latest sign that Democrats, relegated to the minority in Washington and desperate to find a more coherent message after their devastating 2024 losses, are still mired in a politically fraught debate about how to move forward.
Mr. Deluzio has highlighted his status as a young lawmaker who outperformed former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election in a critical district in a key battleground state as he makes the case for why he is the right person to help lead his party out of its funk.
In an interview, Mr. Deluzio said the “progressive” and “moderate” labels did not work anymore given that his entire tattered party needed to be restructured around an economic populist message that he said had been co-opted by the right.
“I am not interested in a wimpy Democratic Party,” Mr. Deluzio said. “The party for years has put too much stock in avoiding fights, avoiding naming big corporate villains.” It is time for Democrats to turn back to their working-class roots, he said.
The new group includes a disparate group of Democrats, including Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, a former chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus, and Representative Pat Ryan, a moderate New York Democrat from a swing district. It notably does not yet include any Democrats who won Trump districts in 2024, or any members whom the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has identified as its “frontline” members who are considered the most vulnerable.
“What people are asking for is to transform the party in a more populist direction,” said Representative Greg Casar, Democrat of Texas and the chairman of the Progressive Caucus, who is also a member of the new group. “Populist means we are for working people across the spectrum, even if they disagree with us. The way we bring in conservatives is that we’re economic populists that are willing to be on their side.”
Mr. Casar, who made his debut appearance on Fox News over the weekend in an attempt to reach out to conservative-leaning voters, argued that Democrats could not be the party representing vulnerable people until they were seen as the party for all working people.
The New Economic Patriots have been meeting every other week to hash out a new platform, and circulating among their colleagues a five-page mission statement trying to address what they see as a crisis in the party.
“A few of us believe that we have to focus on the economy,” said Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, who is a member. “We have to focus on issues that affect people’s pocketbooks, and the Democrats haven’t done this effectively for many years.”
Mr. Khanna added: “Our message in 2024 did not recognize how much anger there was with the status quo. We did not recognize that offshoring of jobs was taking place, we did not recognize the pain people were still feeling, and our message wasn’t transformational enough.”
Mr. Deluzio said Democrats had both a messaging and policy problem to fix.
“Voters don’t think Democrats put lowering costs first, and this group does,” he said. “It’s not just putting the economy first; it’s being clear about why you’re being ripped off. We’re very clear about who those villains are.”
But Democrats for months have been talking about Elon Musk, President Trump’s billionaire ally who is leading an aggressive campaign of slashing government, as the main villain of the young administration.
On Tuesday as the group made its debut by delivering a series of speeches on the House floor, Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, made remarks that did not sound any different from dozens of others that she and other Democrats have given in recent weeks railing against Mr. Trump’s policies.
Mr. Deluzio brought with him a poster board that read, simply and unspecifically, “Anti corruption, pro American Dream.”
Some of their colleagues were skeptical of what, exactly, the group was trying to achieve. Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Democrat of Washington, has for years been making the argument that her party is not in tune with the needs of working-class voters. Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez was invited to participate in the new group’s meetings and its performance on the House floor, but she declined, according to a person familiar with her thinking.
Mr. Deluzio said that Tuesday’s floor action was simply an “opening salvo” and that the group would put forward a clear platform to resuscitate the Democratic Party at a moment when voters are desperate for leaders to show an effective way to push back against the Trump administration.
Over the weekend, the progressive stars Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York drew tens of thousands of supporters on their “fight oligarchy” tour, focusing on the needs of working people.
Mr. Deluzio and his colleagues said theirs was the right message for Democrats, and that voters were primed for a bigger revamp of the party. (Neither Mr. Sanders nor Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is part of his group.)
“Too many Americans felt Democrats had become the party of the elites and stopped meeting people where they are,” Mr. Ryan said on the House floor. “This moment is not ideological. It’s about who fights for the people and who fights for the elites.”
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