Rep. Tom Price on Whether GOP’s Goal is Pushing Down Democratic Poll Numbers

At a luncheon at the Heritage Foundation today, I asked Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), the leader of the Republican Study Committee, whether he sided with Rep. Patrick McHenry’s (R-N.C.) comments that the “goal” of House Republicans was “to bring down approval numbers for [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and for House Democrats.” Price didn’t quite agree.

I believe we win when we put our best ideas forward and win the debate. I know that’s what the American people want. I know in my gut the American people don’t want what’s going on right now. So our goal, my goal, would be to put forward the positive, optimistic, upbeat forward-thinking, American-based fundamental solutions, and the American people in two or four years will flock to that. This is not where the nation, outside the beltway, wants to go.

I asked him to clarify whether he disagreed with McHenry. “I would prefer to say as we go up their numbers would have to go down, out of necessity, because it’s a finite universe.”