The size of Democrats’ wave surprised even their top House super PAC

Even the head of House Democrats’ top super PAC didn’t fully anticipate the size of their massive midterm wave.

Heading into Election Day, House Majority PAC president Mike Smith told POLITICO Tuesday’s results, which have netted them a whopping 252 House seats with more yet to be called, was “on the very high end” of the group’s expectations.

The group spent at least $283 million on ads this cycle, per ad-tracking firm AdImpact, making them the largest Democratic spender in House races this cycle and a significant force behind the party’s big night.

As Democrats turn their attention to 2028, Smith remains optimistic the party can hold on to its majority.

His confidence stems in part from a projection that Democrats will respond to the affordability concerns that were the core of the party’s promise to voters.

If Democrats don’t make efforts to address the rising cost of living, “then it's a totally different story,” Smith said.

Q: How were you feeling in the final days before Tuesday?

Obviously this would have been on the very high end of what we expected. Over the last three months, overall our polling has been pretty consistent. Our whole thought was, with the right environment, if we have the right message and the right types of candidates in, not just the 50-50 districts, but like deeper in the map, that we could put those seats in play and we could potentially win.

Going into Election Day, our whole feeling was there's a clear path to like 235-plus [seats]. We were playing in districts that, if you were to rank them from like one to 435, some of those districts were like 250, 255, right? And I would throw IN-05, CO-03, KY-06, SC-01, some of the Florida races. SC-01 wasn't ever going to be seat 225. That was always in the 240s and maybe even 250s. But we took a chance because we saw what the national environment looked like. We saw what the data was coming back in within these individual races. So I think we were optimistic. But to be totally honest, in our heads, you have to play in seat 255 to get to seat 240. You have to spread out the map. You have to force Republicans on their heels, and then you start piecing together how you get to the 240-245 range. Once the numbers started coming back, that was the best case scenario for us. Everything came together.

You guys cut reservations in some reach districts, only to go back up in the final few days. On the outside, it appeared like cutting spending in those reach districts was a bad sign. What went into those last-minute spending decisions?

A lot of the places we made reservations back in April, and then continued to add on to that over the course of the summer. Partners and allies in a bunch of different places took over our reservations. We tried to be smart by locking in the lowest possible rates in very expensive markets, [so that] even if HMP wasn't the entity spending, we still had partners and allies that were taking over their reservations. In doing all that we saved about $130 million that we could reinvest.

The challenge with some of the races was by a week out, our money was spent. And in some of those districts, there weren't any partners willing to step up and do it. Florida is a good example of that.

That’s where we just had to make a decision that there weren't the resources there, and we had to leave the reservations on the table. Around that time, Mayor Bloomberg was like, "We can't let these races get away from us. We need to do everything we can," and that's where we went back into some of those places.

Did you feel the need to adjust your messaging at all once MAGA Inc. and Elon Musk’s PAC joined CLF on the airwaves?

The short answer is no. The messaging was fairly consistent. Early on, our whole feeling was we need to reframe how voters perceive Democrats. When voters think about what Democrats are fighting for, the first thing we want them to think about is cost of living, the economy. At the same time, bringing to light Republican policies that are increasing the cost of living, or focus on things that are anything but that.

Over several months, we did a bunch of battleground research looking at ‘how does corruption tie into that,’ which culminated in what we would describe as the cost of Republican corruption, and how that is impacting your day to day and your cost of living. That's what we went into Election Day with.

Overall, we ran, I don't know, 1300 different types of ads, whether TV, digital, direct mail, or whatnot. 76% of those ads talked about the economy. 60% of those ads focused on corruption, because in so many of them, those two things were interlinked in voters' minds.

Republicans continued to focus on the same thing. It was trying to paint Democrats as out of touch or extremists. And again, the theory of the case from the beginning was us focusing on economic concerns, especially when we figured out we could tie that corruption lens into it. That's going to be more important to voters than folks talking about socialism or anything else.

Democrats were able to prevent Republicans from capitalizing on their redistricting gains. Are you worried about those gains bearing fruit in a less favorable environment, maybe as soon as 2028?

In a different environment, these races are going to come together in a much different way. So I do think it's something that we need to be hyper-focused on. That said, I don't think redistricting is going to go away.

I'm actually pretty hopeful that these huge shifts across every demographic group that we just saw, as long as Democrats continue to focus on the issue that matters most to voters.

If we don't, then it's a totally different story.

Are you saying the fate of Democrats' House chances in 2028 to keep these seats is predicated on Congress passing something, even with the current president still in the White House, that addresses affordability issues?

I wouldn't say passing. Soon-to-be Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, since we won, his message is that Democrats are focused on three things: costs, care and corruption.

When we come into power, we are going to be hyper-focused on fighting to bring down the cost of living for voters. I think Donald Trump is still this outsized X-factor in everything. He's still the sitting president in the White House. So I wouldn't say it's like, “Oh we have to pass 300 bills. That's the only way we're going to be successful.” I think we just need to show voters that we are willing to get stuff done, and in instances where we need to, work across the aisle to pass stuff that's going to be helpful to voters. I think if we do that, then I think we're setting ourselves up for success going into ‘28, both with the White House and the House and the Senate. Donald Trump is still going to be this huge factor in all of this, and I don't think voters are going to be like, “Democrats weren't able to accomplish this,” and think that that was us. They're going to continue blaming Donald Trump going into Election Day 2028.

To go back to redistricting, do you want Democrats in these states where they have newly-won trifectas to take up redistricting even if Republicans don’t push for it again?

I think Democrats need to do everything that it will take to win, and if that means that in states where we control the state house, the state senate, a governor's race, we have an opportunity to redraw the map, I think we need to do it.

What were the seats Democrats flipped that surprised you the most?

I would say NJ-02 [Rep. Jeff Van Drew’s seat], It was a district where we had looked at it — we did not think that it was credibly possible, to be totally honest.

I'd say North Carolina as a whole, probably. We felt good about NC-01, NC-11 for a while…. [NRCC Chair and North Carolina Rep.] Richard Hudson, we looked at that district. There was a clear path to winning it. There just wasn't money, at the end of the day. NC-13, NC-14, same thing. The makeup of the districts, they're not bad targets for Democrats. It was just, how much can we spread resources out? But the total implosion in North Carolina by Republicans at the federal level, at the state level — that was probably one of the biggest surprises.

A version of this article first appeared in POLITICO Pro’s Morning Score. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.