After spending fight, House Democrats regroup in Philadelphia to plan for midterms

Democrats are spending a week focusing on their message for the fall.

The last time Democrats gathered in-person for a caucus retreat, in 2019, the House majority crafted an agenda centered on plans for a bipartisan infrastructure bill and lowering prescription drug prices.

Three years later, with full control of Congress and the White House, but facing historic headwinds in the midterm elections, an ongoing pandemic and record-high inflation, Democrats argued that they had a substantive record to sell to voters, even if their agenda remained unfinished.

"If our agenda is incomplete it doesn't mean we are broken, it means we have to keep working," Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., the chair of House Democrats' campaign committee, told reporters Thursday. "We know what the stakes are."

Last year, President Joe Biden signed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan into law with bipartisan support, clearing the way for repairs to America's aging roads, bridges and airports and new investments in broadband.