The scene stunned many lawmakers. within hours, its map He was in front of President Joe Biden. Dingell has lost her leadership race, to a Californian no less, but she is breaking through in her call for the party to go home to the center of the country or risk losing ground in 2024.

“Debbie’s message was really important,” said Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minnesota), a fellow Midwesterner. “This map is, basically, the evidence our opponents have been using against us for some time now, and it is: we are the coastal party.”

Dingell is launching what she’s dubbed the Heartland Caucus, a group of Democrats who plan to champion manufacturing, trade and other economic issues they see as crucial to repairing their party’s tarnished brand back home. Midwestern Democrats are banding together at a critical time, as their district hosts several must-win Senate races next year as the party prepares to lift Michigan on its primary ballot to the White House — but at the expense of Iowa, another state at heart.

Dingell said, “You can’t live in a bubble here.” famous that Donald Trump would win in 2016 as the Democrats lost ground with voters in her home state. After losing her bid for vice president of the caucus last week, Dingell said, “I went to bed Wednesday night and said Thursday morning: ‘We’re starting this.’”

One big driver behind her new group: The number of overseas Democrats who will lead the party on next year’s House committee can be counted on one hand. The party’s top five leaders hail from New York, Massachusetts, California and South Carolina. It’s part of a huge party-wide shift over the past two decades, when Richard Gephardt of Missouri and David Bonior of Michigan once helped guide House Democrats.

“California always has a seat, in fact, very few, and so does New York. And then we have Boston,” said Rep. Marcy Captor (D-Ohio), who co-shaped the caucus. “And he’s like, what about us?”

The Ohio Democrat cited a recent sparring she had with fellow Democrats on the caucus special committee over economic justice. Kaptur said she had to “fight and fight and fight” for her economic plight in her district to be represented in the group’s final report this week. But in the 30-minute documentary, she says she can’t mention the Midwest at all.

“I’m angry about that. Ask Jim Himes, the committee chair from Greenwich, Connecticut,” Captor said. “The attitude of some on the committee was, ‘Okay, let them move,’” she said when describing the struggles of the working class in Lorain, Ohio, or Flint, Michigan, or Kenosha, Wisconsin.

While many Midwesterners said their current group of leaders supports their top-priority causes, they remain concerned about the lack of regional votes in the upper ranks of the party. These members warn that a lack of geographic diversity among senior policymakers could have serious electoral consequences.

“We end up with policy decisions that don’t reflect the Midwest. I think it’s something that kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Rep. Bill Foster (D-Illinois) said of his district’s lack of representation among committee leaders.

The exact boundaries of the upcoming Heartland Caucus aren’t entirely clear yet — appropriately, given that Midwestern definition itself is Notorious topic of controversy. Lawmakers involved in the caucus launch said they plan to initially count on the dozens of states included in the Census Bureau’s definition, a square piece of the map that spans From Dakota and Kansas to Ohio.

But the group’s organizers said they’ve also sent membership applications from Democrats in western Pennsylvania, northern New York and even rural parts of California, whose districts often act more like the Midwest than their colleagues’ urban bases along either coast. (The collection will not be officially launched until the next Congress.)

Dingell and her fellow Michiganders had a big win this week: Biden made a coordinated push The state of Mitten becomes one of the top five states for the party’s presidential elections, which enhances the prospects for an official rise in the party’s table. It was the culmination of a 30-year quest by the late congressman-turned-senator Carl Levin and a signal to many Democrats that the president himself sees their way to keep the White House going straight in the area.

“Michigan really is a microcosm of the country in many ways. You have to win it to win,” said Representative Andy Levine (D-Michigan), nephew of Carl Levine and a longtime witness to the fight.

Other Midwestern Democrats, however, have pointed out that Michigan’s success has come at the expense of Iowa — where the party badly lost the Senate race this fall as well as its only House seat.

That Iowa seat, where Rep. Cindy Axen failed last month, is one of several pro-Trump Midwest districts from House Democrats. gave up thanks A mixture of losses and retirements. Also on the list: the rural seats held by retired Representatives Ron Kind (Democrat) and Sherry Bustos (Democrat of Illinois).

Bustos, who has sat at Pelosi’s leadership table for several terms now as the last Midwesterner in the top ranks of House Democrats, encouraged her colleagues to continue to prioritize rural America after she, Axen and others left Hill.

The district will get some leadership representation, as Phillips and Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) will take on lower-level roles in the upcoming Congress as co-chairs of the messaging arm of the caucuses. But Bustos, among other Democrats, has stressed the importance of pressing for more.

“Being at the driving table is really important,” Bustos said. “I think it would be bad overall for Congress and our nation if we don’t have a loud enough voice representing rural America and the Midwest.”

Ally Mutnick contributed.