When practical shoes tell you something about a politician

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At a Monitor Breakfast, Democratic congressional campaign Chair Suzan DelBene shows her pragmatic side – both in her strategy for retaking the House and in her choice of footwear.

Troy Sambajon/The Christian Science Monitor

Rep. Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, speaks to reporters at a Monitor Breakfast in Washington DC at the St. Regis Hotel on May 17, 2024

May 20, 2024

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Washington

At the end of our Monitor Breakfast on May 17 with Rep. Suzan DelBene – chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) – my colleague Christa Case Bryant complimented her on her shoes: shiny, multicolored flats.

The key is that they’re not heels, thus reducing the chances of wiping out on those marble floors in the U.S. Capitol – or on the venerable building’s well-grooved stairs.

Representative DelBene mentioned that the subject of footwear had come up the day before at a DCCC fundraiser emphasizing the importance of women members and candidates to retaking the House. The Democrat from Washington state made clear then – and to us – that she’s on “team flats.”

Which may point to her practical style in a key role heading into the November elections: making sure her party is doing all it can to regain the House majority. The goal is tantalizingly close. The Democrats need a net gain of only four seats (in a chamber of 435) to retake control. But it won’t be easy. Most races aren’t competitive – a sign of today’s polarization and of how congressional districts are often drawn to favor one party or the other.

Sitting before her on the breakfast table, Ms. DelBene has a cheat sheet listing the 65 districts she and her committee are tracking – including 20 “red to blue” candidates, “the folks who are looking to flip seats across the country” from Republican to Democratic, she says.

Ms. DelBene, an MBA with a career in tech before her first election to Congress in 2012, brings an analytical eye to the task and a background as a moderate. It’s surely no accident that before House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries tapped her to run the DCCC, she chaired the centrist New Democrat Coalition.

“I do think,” Ms. DelBene says, “that you’re a better legislator when you hear differing points of view.”

Read our coverage of the Monitor Breakfast here.

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Mark Sappenfield

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