House Dems Look at 2016

Lauren French writes at Politico:

House Democrats are crafting an election-year message that leaders hope will reverse years of seat loses and help lawmakers connect with independent voters.

At a four-hour session at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill, 16 House lawmakers on the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee strategized Tuesday as to how to improve their party’s chances of winning back the House.

“You can’t just stick a message in an oven, turn it up to 450 degrees and produce a message. It has to be driven by consensus and it has to be driven by empirical data,” Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said. “What runs through all of the polling and all of the intuition is that voters sense that the economy is changing and they want a political party that has solutions to ensure that they are ready for those changes.”

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Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, a moderate and member of the committee, said it was clear from Tuesday’s discussion that leadership is focused on competitive districts where Democrats can pick up seats.

“They started the meeting by holding up a list of the frontliners … that need to be defended,” said Himes, referring to vulnerable Democrats. “Their message was about keeping their seats. Also on that seat were vulnerable Republicans that have similar districts.”