House Democrats’ campaign chief won’t ‘play hypotheticals’ about chances of Republican wave

The chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said on Sunday that he wouldn’t “play hypotheticals” when asked about a Republican wave in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

“If you happen to lose you don’t think that somehow is part of the national wave, that you got sort of rolled out that way?” host Chuck Todd asked Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) on “Meet the Press.”

“Well, I guess what I’m not going to do is play hypotheticals with you when we’re two days out from an election and I’ve won five times in a district where everybody said I couldn’t,” Maloney responded.

“I mean, if we were having this conversation in 2012 you would’ve made fun of me for even running because I was running against a Republican incumbent with a bunch of money and nobody thought I could win,” he said.

Maloney, who is facing a touch reelection race, also noted that “people like me weren’t supposed to serve in Congress from New York until I did it.”

“So with all due respect, what Democrats are going to do right now is going to go out and fight with everything we’ve got for seniors who need costs capped in Medicare, for people worried about gun violence in our schools, for people who want to have a real plan to go forward together without the anger and the fear and the hatred, fighting for women’s reproductive freedom and voting rights,” he said. “That’s what we’re going to do. And I’m going to let the pundits kind of make predictions. We’re going to let the voters speak on Tuesday.”

When asked what will constitute a good night for Democrats on Tuesday, Maloney said, “We’re going to hold this majority.”

“That constitutes a good night. We’re going to defend our mainstream democratic values against the threats to our democracy. We’re going to protect women’s reproductive freedom and voting rights. We’re going to give you cheaper prices for gas and groceries, health care and housing, and we’re going to give you safer streets by funding good local policing with accountability, but also doing something about gun violence. And that is a plan for the future and because our candidates have real plans, they’re going to do better than people think on Tuesday night.”