Moderate Democrats fear party infighting could cost them Congress

Moderate congressional Democrats have expressed fear that party infighting could hand Congress over to their Republican rivals in the upcoming midterm elections in November.

Continuous fights within the Democratic Party over US President Joe Biden's agenda have raised the prospect of Democrats losing this year's congressional elections.

Moderate Democrats interluding Reps. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Iowa's Cindy Axne were cited on Tuesday by Reuters as complaining that US voters only see a party that is fighting with itself, "whining, blaming", and making a lot of people "feel like Washington is so broken."

They said the Democratic Party paid too much attention to its failures and not enough to achievements like the $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed in November.

The moderate Democrats, whose seats the party will have to defend in November to maintain the current status quo in Congress, said people's concerns and disappointment have caused the voters to lose their enthusiasm.   

The Senate is split 50-50 between the two sides, while Democrats hold a 222-212 majority in the House.

The voters' grievances were reflected in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll that showed one in four Democrats think the party underachieved last year because of infighting and a lack of determination to push legislation through.

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The findings of the poll, conducted online interviewing 4,404 adults including 2,015 Democrats, 1,663 Republicans and 510 independents from Jan. 31 to Feb. 8 , showed dissatisfaction among Democratic voters.

The poll found that 28% of Democrats said their party was unable to get things done last year because they were too busy fighting each other or lacked resolve. Forty-seven percent blamed Republicans for blocking Democratic efforts and only 25% said the party had been able to accomplish most of its goals.

"When you have a quarter of your own party conceding that we didn't get things done and it was mostly our fault, that's a problem," said Daron Shaw, an expert on polling and elections at the University of Texas at Austin.

Democratic voters said the party's failure to deliver on high-level priorities like Biden's $1.75 trillion "Build Back Better" social spending bill or to pass sweeping voter rights reform were the reasons for their disappointment.

Both of these issues were met with Republican opposition in the 50-50 Senate, where two conservative Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, rejected top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer's proposed maneuvers to pass them.

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