Democrats Begin Eyeing 2018 Senate Takeover
Can Democrats retake control of not just the House of Representatives but also the Senate in 2018? Well, they'd pretty much have to run the tables to do so, but with last night's Alabama's upset victory by Doug Jones, what has changed is that it is now a distinct possibility. While many Democrats are giddily celebrating their surprise win, they should also take the time to examine the factors present not just in Alabama but also in the other races that have happened over the past year, to identify the key factors in winning. Because if they've got any chance at all of taking the Senate, they should work as hard as possible to maximize what has been going well for them.
Before I get to that, let's take a closer look at what happened last night in Alabama. The first and most obvious conclusion to draw is that Trump is now a three-time loser. He has blundered into three statewide races in the past two months, and he has wound up on the losing side in all three. First there was the governor's race in Virginia, then the Alabama primary (where Trump backed the wrong horse), and then last night's special Senate election where Trump actively campaigned for Roy Moore only to see him lose. That's 0-for-3, folks. This might lead many Republican candidates next year to quietly beg the White House for President Trump not to get involved with their races, but it's pretty early to predict that drastic a GOP move away from Trump. But there's no denying it -- of late, the Trump ballot box magic does not extend to anyone not named "Trump," it seems. This is no real surprise when his job approval ratings are so dismal (Monmouth just posted a poll where only 32 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump's doing -- less than one-third of the public, in other words).
Even in Alabama, Trump doesn't have the influence he once had. Last year, Trump won the state with 62 percent of the vote -- by a whopping 28 percent margin. In yesterday's exit polls, this lead had evaporated completely. When Alabama voters were asked whether they approved of the job Trump was doing, the results were tied at 48 percent approval and 48 percent disapproval. This means Trump support has eroded by the entirety of that 28 percent. In one year. In Alabama.
Disaffected Republicans were one of the keys to the Jones victory, pretty obviously. The election returns (as of last night) stood at: 49.9 percent Jones, 48.4 percent Moore, and a whopping 1.7 percent for write-in votes. This likely means Jones's margin of victory was smaller than the number of Republicans who felt they had a civic duty to cast their vote, but just could not pull the lever for Roy Moore. Now, the final margin of error may change slightly over the next few days (as provisional ballots are certified and counted) but it'll still likely be pretty close to where it is now, even if Jones's margin winds up bigger than the write-in vote by a few tenths of a percent. That's not likely to happen in any other race, and can squarely be attributed to the awfulness of Roy Moore as a candidate.
Some in the Republican Party were actively hostile to Moore's campaign -- something else that may only be replicated next year if extreme Bannon-style candidates win the GOP Senate nominations. After the news of Jones's victory broke, Republican Senator Jeff Flake (who had actually donated money to the Democrat Jones) tweeted: "Decency wins," while Meghan McCain was more to the point: "Suck it, Bannon." This is not exactly a unified party heading into midterm season, to put it mildly.
This should be the first lesson for Democrats considering what kind of campaign to run next year. There are plenty of negative feelings within the Republican Party towards other members of their party. These should be used in Democratic ads. One of the more startling numbers from recent Alabama polling was how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is viewed in the state. Trump's ratings have fallen considerably, but McConnell's are even more dismal. Only 16 percent of Alabama voters have a favorable impression of McConnell, while a whopping 67 percent view him unfavorably. Republicans have written the playbook on how to use this to political advantage in advertising, and Democrats need to now use it against them. For every GOP ad demonizing Nancy Pelosi and/or Chuck Schumer in a local race, Democrats should run their own ads slamming McConnell and Paul Ryan. This stuff works, and Democrats should wake up and realize it. Like Trump, McConnell can be a drag on the GOP ticket.
But anti-Trump or anti-McConnell ads won't be enough. This leads to the three biggest lessons Democrats should be learning while planning their 2018 campaigns: recruit good candidates, boost turnout every way you know how, and make healthcare (and, now, tax cuts for Wall Street) a key issue in your campaign.
First, the candidate is important. Roy Moore proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt, but so did Doug Jones. He had a strong background in the state's politics, and he even overcame being pro-choice in a heavily anti-abortion state. He did a masterful job of keeping outsiders from within his own party at arm's length during the campaign, avoiding the "people from OUT OF STATE are paying for his ads!" type of charge. Almost every state resents outsiders coming in to tell them who to elect, some more so than others. Barack Obama actively campaigned in Virginia's election, but largely stayed out of Alabama (probably at Jones's request). What works in one place doesn't work in another.
When examining the chances Democrats may have of taking the Senate, it wasn't just the Jones win that has recently changed the calculus. The two states to be most heavily targeted by Democrats (outside of the Alabama race) are generally agreed to be Nevada and Arizona. In Arizona, Jeff Flake is stepping down, leaving an open race in a state that may be trending blue (or at least purple). A Bannon-style candidate has a good chance of winning the Arizona GOP primary, too, which only increases the chances Democrats have of picking up the seat. But the announcement in Tennessee that former (and still popular) Democratic governor Phil Bredesen has thrown his hat in the ring for the Senate race there has many rethinking how many races Democrats may have a reasonable chance of winning.
There's one other factor worth mentioning, even if it is morbid to contemplate. John McCain may not make it to next November. He has brain cancer, after all. If McCain became incapable of performing his duties (or if he dies in office), then there may be a special election next November to replace him. This would mean Arizona would have two open Senate races at the same time. This increases the chances that a Democrat could win at least one of them, obviously, but it also opens the door to a two-seat pickup, turning Arizona completely blue in the Senate. A long shot, to be sure, but worth mentioning at the very least.
Of course, Democrats will be defending many Senate seats in states that Trump won as well. Even with the four races listed above where Republicans will be playing defense, only a true wave election will give Democrats a fighting chance to win back control of the Senate (which will now only require a net two-seat pickup next year). And creating such a wave means boosting turnout. This is where Democrats are looking really great. In pretty much every election that has been held in 2017 -- even in the ones that Democrats lost -- Democrats have managed to turn out their voters at a much higher rate than usual, while Republican voting has either been stagnant or has fallen considerably. Take last night in Alabama, for instance. In raw numbers of votes, Doug Jones managed to get 92 percent as many votes as Hillary Clinton did one year earlier. But Moore only managed to turn out a dismal 49 percent of those who voted for Donald Trump. That's a pretty stark difference, and it matches what happened in Virginia in November as well. Suburban voters are flocking to the polls, and they are voting overwhelmingly Democratic when they get there. The resistance persists, in other words. If Democrats can keep voter enthusiasm this high throughout 2018, they have a real shot at creating a wave election.
Of course, Democrats have to stand for something and not just against their Republican competitors. And Republicans have already given them two gigantic issues to use against them: healthcare and taxes. In Virginia, strongly supporting Obamacare and the Medicaid expansion was a central reason why the Democrat won the governor's office. Doug Jones also ran heavily on healthcare. For almost a decade, Republicans have been winning elections by waving the red flag of Obamacare in front of their voters. But when the voters finally realized what "repeal and replace" actually meant, it turns out they were horrified. Republicans, this year, have done what Barack Obama and the Democratic Party hadn't managed to yet do -- make Obamacare popular with the public. Voters now trust Democrats on healthcare much more than they do Republicans, so this issue should be hammered home by every Democratic candidate on the campaign trail. The GOP tax plan is even less popular than the GOP's effort to kill Obamacare, so this will also be a key issue for Democrats to hammer next year: "Republicans promised a middle class tax cut and they lied to you and instead gave all the breaks to Wall Street and the ultrawealthy!"
Can the Democrats win back control of the Senate next year? Once almost unthinkable, this is now a distinct possibility. They'd have to absolutely run the table to do so, meaning it still only has a very slight chance of happening. Regaining control of the House is much more likely to happen. And yet... and yet... with Jones's victory, Democrats are now eyeing complete control of Congress in a year's time. This may all prove to be cockeyed optimism run amok, but that the possibility even now exists is certainly a big and welcome change for Democrats.
-- Chris Weigant
Cross-posted at The Huffington Post
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
One point of clarification:
When I wrote and posted this, I had not yet heard the news that John McCain had been hospitalized today. I probably would have mentioned the AZ situation even if I had known, but I probably also would have been a bit more compassionate in my phrasing.
The timing was purely coincidental, and I meant no disresepct to Senator McCain for bringing it up today. Just so we're perfectly clear.
-CW
The timing was purely coincidental, and I meant no disrespect to Senator McCain for bringing it up today. Just so we're perfectly clear.
Did you see the View today, Chris?
Timing can be everything and, sometimes, nothing at all.
It's always a good time for compassion.
I think we all believe that John McCain is a patriot who has always tried to do his best, as he sees it, for our country.
I disagree on some points with him about what will make America stronger in the long run, and from a purely political point of view, if he was voted out of office and replaced by a Democrat, I think this would be a good thing right now for the country.
However I assume we wish this honorable man the best of health.
Indeed.
LizM [4] -
Nope, the only daytime TV I ever bother with is CBS in the morning, and that's only like one or two days a week (and under protest...).
:-)
-CW
LizM and neilm -
I wrote that clarification because I still feel kinda bad for urging Teddy Kennedy to resign his seat (effective months in the future) mere days before he actually died... of a brain tumor:
http://www.chrisweigant.com/2009/08/20/the-superannuation-of-senator-ted-kennedy/
Kennedy died August 25. His seat, interestingly enough, was taken by Scott Brown, the closest parallel to what just happened in Alabama. But that's just a coincidence.
I still do feel bad for how crass the column looked in retrospective. So I had to clarify the situation with McCain. Of all the columns I have ever written (approaching 3,000 of them now), this is the one I would say had the worst timing of them all, and the one I remember for worst timing ever.
Just to let everyone know where I'm coming from...
-CW
Chris,
I know why you wrote that ... clarification.
I don't have a link to the View ... not sure where you would find the actual show on TV -I just saw the heartbreaking clip on a news report - you should google Meagan McCain and Joe Biden and try to keep a dry eye.
Btw, I am distressingly without access to email for the next little while and I'm wondering if I should be using the same snail mail address as usual for the Holiday Pledge drive ...
But that's just a coincidence.
Maybe, or maybe that coincidence itself is a reminder that politics is cyclical. The old season fades as the new emerges.
McCain might be called the father of the Tea Party, as his choice of Sarah Palin was considered by some to be the spark that lit the populist fire that culminated in Trump. To be sure, the election of Obama and events that followed fanned the flames, and Romney's defeat sharpened the dissatisfaction with all sides that fueled it.
But it is also fitting that in what may be one of his greatest political acts, a simple 'no', McCain was able to save Obamacare and deliver the populists, Trump and the Republican establishment its biggest legislative defeat of the year.
Ted Kennedy was considered to be the spiritual 'father' of Obamacare, and though he died of a brain tumor before was passed into law, his support for it helped get it over the finish line.
Which gets us back to the 'coincidence' that Scott Brown, the Tea Party's first Senate candidate, was Kennedy's successor, and hence, the parallel to Doug Jones. Brown's election heralded a historic populist "tea party" wave that hit the Democrats like a tsunami the following November.
Jones' victory is today credited with exposing the weakness of the Trump coalition, caused, in part, by Trump's inability to govern effectively, which was exposed elegantly by McCain's defiance.
So you could say that McCain helped to bring the Trump movement into the world, and his refusal to advance their unreasonable agenda might be the act that hastens its end. He might be seen some day as the Halley's comet of a brief period of populist nationalist uprising that ended (as they sometimes do), when the voters saw its awful philosophies embodied in the flesh.
But it's probably all just a coincidence.
[12] I would actually prefer to end that last full paragraph,
"... when the voters saw its awful philosophies exposed by comparison to real virtue."
Closer to what I was actually thinking.
Democrats Begin Eyeing 2018 Senate Takeover
Oh, come on now, CW..
Democrats have been "eyeing" a Senate takeover since they lost it in 2014...
Just because of this one outlier election, they now think they have a shot..
But let me ask you this and answer honestly..
Have Democrats learned ANYTHING from 2014 and 2016?? Have they changed their ways???
Have they done **ANYTHING** that would bring back the voters they lost??
Nope.. The **ONLY** thing Dumbocrats have done is double down on failed policies and attacking the VERY voters they need to bring to their side..
The very definition of insanity...
Ted Kennedy was considered to be the spiritual 'father' of Obamacare, and though he died of a brain tumor before was passed into law, his support for it helped get it over the finish line.
And the fact that he raped and killed women means nothing, right??
This is EXACTLY why it's impossible to take ya'all seriously...
Ya'all totally IGNORE the facts and reality in favor of whatever is best for the Party... Even if the facts and reality are rape and manslaughter...
Party Uber Alles
So far, no candidate that he endorsed has won. All year.
Well, except for Montana, Georgia and South Carolina...
This is EXACTLY why ya'all's hysterical rants against President Trump are so... well.. hysterical..
They have NOTHING to do with facts and reality and EVERYTHING to do with hysterical PTDS...
And the fact that he raped and killed women means nothing, right??
ted kennedy? are you sure you don't also have a brain tumor?
Have Democrats learned ANYTHING from 2014 and 2016?? Have they changed their ways???
I mean, honestly..
How long did BETTER JOBS, BETTER DEAL, BETTER PIZZA last???
About as long as it took Democrats to swivel hysterically to identity politics over trans in the military.. About a day...
Democrats have NOTHING in the cupboard except identity politics and attacking Trump supporters...
And ya'all HONESTLY think that THAT is going to be enough to win the House and Senate in 2018???
Well, I have to congratulate CW for one momentous achievement.. He has finally invented Time Travel..
We have been whisked back in time to Sep/Oct of 2016 and ya'all are, once again, totally, hysterically convinced that the next election will be TOTALLY dominated by Demcorats!!
Congrats, CW.. Time Travel! Who would have thunked it.. :D
Hay neil...
What's my count???
ted kennedy? are you sure you don't also have a brain tumor?
Which part do you dispute?? They raping of women or the killing of women???
Nice ta see ya around, Joshua... I was getting worried about ya... :D
ted kennedy? are you sure you don't also have a brain tumor?
That's not a brain tumor.. I am just happy ta see ya... :D
hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe
PBS Suspends ‘Tavis Smiley’ Following Sexual Misconduct Investigation (EXCLUSIVE)
http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/tavis-smiley-pbs-1202639424/
What IS it about Democrats???
Two years is long time to wait for an article or at least an explanation of why there has been no article- Do I have to wait TUMOR?
heh... Now THAT was funny.. :D
DH,
Touche...
Democrats and the media are accusing anyone who criticizes special counsel Robert Mueller as Trumpian conspirators trying to undermine his probe. But who needs critics when Mr. Mueller’s team is doing so much to undermine its own credibility?
Wednesday’s revelations—they’re coming almost daily—include the Justice Department’s release of 2016 text messages to and from Peter Strzok, the FBI counterintelligence agent whom Mr. Mueller demoted this summer. The texts, which he exchanged with senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page, contain expletive-laced tirades against Mr. Trump. Such Trump hatred is no surprise and not by itself disqualifying. More troubling are texts that suggest that some FBI officials may have gone beyond antipathy to anti-Trump plotting.
“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office—that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected—but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” Mr. Strzok wrote Ms. Page in an Aug. 15, 2016 text. He added: “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
What “policy” would that be? The “Andy” in question is Andrew McCabe, the deputy FBI director. FBI officials are allowed to have political opinions, but what kind of action were they discussing that would amount to anti-Trump “insurance”?
In another exchange that month, Ms. Page forwarded a Trump-related article and wrote: “Maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace.” He thanked her and assured: “Of course I’ll try and approach it that way.” Mr. Strzok, recall, is the man who changed the words “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless” in James Comey’s July 2016 public exoneration of Hillary Clinton’s emails.
The McCabe meeting came on the heels of the FBI’s launch of its counterintelligence probe into Trump-Russia ties. July is also when former British spook Christopher Steele briefed the FBI on his Clinton-financed dossier of salacious allegations against Mr. Trump. The texts explain why Mr. Mueller would remove Mr. Strzok, though a straight shooter wouldn’t typically resist turning those messages over to Congress for as long as Mr. Mueller did.
Meanwhile, we’re learning more about the political motives of Mr. Mueller’s lieutenant, Andrew Weissmann. Judicial Watch last week released an email in which Mr. Weissmann expressed his “awe” and praise for Sally Yates, after the then acting AG and Obama holdover refused to implement Mr. Trump’s travel ban.
This should trouble anyone who cares about the integrity of the Justice Department. Ms. Yates had every right to resign at the time if she felt she couldn’t implement Mr. Trump’s order. But she had no authority as an executive branch official to defy a legitimate presidential order. Mr. Weissmann’s support for her insubordination was a declaration that he is part of the “resistance.” This should be unacceptable in a ranking FBI official, much less someone charged with conducting a fair-minded investigation.
Public confidence isn’t helped by the continuing Justice and FBI refusal to cooperate with Congress. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who supervises Mr. Mueller, toed the Mueller-FBI line on Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee. He repeated FBI Director Christopher Wray’s preposterous excuse that he can’t answer questions because of an Inspector General probe. And he wouldn’t elaborate on the news that Nellie Ohr, the wife of senior Justice official Bruce Ohr, worked for Fusion GPS, which hired Mr. Steele to gin up his dossier.
The man who should be most disturbed by all this is Mr. Mueller, who wants his evidence and conclusions to be credible with the public. Evidence is building instead that some officials at the FBI—who have worked for him—may have interfered in an American presidential election. Congress needs to insist on its rights as a co-equal branch of government to discover the truth.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fbis-trump-insurance-1513210929
Face the facts, people..
Mueller's probe is nothing but a witch hunt totally devoted to one thing and one thing only..
Nullifying a free, fair and legal election...
That's the conclusion that NO ONE here has even bother denying, let alone has been able to refute...
408
John McCain is a collection of contradictions. William Shakespeare could have easily written a couple of first rate history plays about him.
Mueller's probe is nothing but a witch hunt totally devoted to one thing and one thing only..
if it looks like a witch and it quacks like a witch...
If she weighs the same as a duck... she's made of wood!
And therefore...
A witch!
~monty python and the holy grail
just encountered this:
http://media.cleveland.com/darcy/photo/22744665-mmmain.jpg
Mueller's probe is nothing but a witch hunt totally devoted to one thing and one thing only..
This nonsense might be slightly believable if Mueller wasn't a Republican who was put in place by a Republican DoJ whose leaders were hand picked by a Republican President and there was no pressure from a Republican Senate or a Republican House.
Let Mueller do his job and be patient. If there is nothing there then you've got nothing to worry about. And stop talking about Russia every single thread then complaining that people are talking about Russia all the time.
Congress needs to insist on its rights as a co-equal branch of government to discover the truth.
Super, Congress is going to go on a troll through the FBI conducting Republican purity tests. That should help their cause with the FBI.
Isn't it funny that Michale is suddenly all for investigations into law enforcement officers when they might not adhere to his view of how right wing an FBI agent should be, but complains about every investigation into a shooting?
This nonsense might be slightly believable if Mueller wasn't a Republican who was put in place by a Republican DoJ whose leaders were hand picked by a Republican President and there was no pressure from a Republican Senate or a Republican House.
Mueller is a NeverTrumper who was put in place by a NeverTrumper...
I notice that you ignore ALL of the *FACTS* that shows Mueller's team's anti-Trump bias...
Let Mueller do his job and be patient.
Could you??
Could you "be patient" and shut up about your hysterical Trump accusations??
Of course you can't..
And as long as ya'all can't, I won't...
It's that simple...
409
Isn't it funny that Michale is suddenly all for investigations into law enforcement officers when they might not adhere to his view of how right wing an FBI agent should be, but complains about every investigation into a shooting?
FBI agents are lawyers first and foremost..
410
ESPECIALLY the FBI agents that are Odumbo-Bots...
411
The Democrats "eyeing a 2018 senate takeover" is equivalent to me eyeing a 2018 Taylor Swift takeover - fun to dream about, but ain't gonna happen!
Reports are that the Strzok - Page emails are far less one-sided than House Republicans would have us think - the two apparently discussed Hillary and Bernie in not-so-glowy terms as well.
Folks blow off steam in private conversations. The question should be: did they do their jobs professionally? By all accounts, the answer to that question is yes.
It bears noting again: the closer that Mueller gets to Trump, the louder and more hysterical the voices against him become. There might be a connection there.
A fond farewell to Net Neutrality.
Next up: pay for every little thing on the internet if you want to see anything. In the future 'free' will mean either slow and content-free, or temporary and abusively commercialized.
Next up: pay for every little thing on the internet if you want to see anything. In the future 'free' will mean either slow and content-free, or temporary and abusively commercialized.
It is far worse than that...It will mean the further isolation of our society into various tribes except that it will no longer be the tribes of the right and the left with some nationalists thrown in to boot. It will be the tribes of Comcast or ATT especially given the fact that the ISP's also own large media companies and news outlets.
Dustin Hoffman Accused of Exposing Himself to a Minor, Assaulting Two Women
http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/dustin-hoffman-2-1202641525/
What IS it with your Democrats????
Reports are that the Strzok - Page emails are far less one-sided than House Republicans would have us think - the two apparently discussed Hillary and Bernie in not-so-glowy terms as well.
Yea???
FACTS to support??
No?? Of course not...
A fond farewell to Net Neutrality.
Next up: pay for every little thing on the internet if you want to see anything. In the future 'free' will mean either slow and content-free, or temporary and abusively commercialized.
Oh waaa waaa waaa..
Odumbo era overreach got bitch-slapped down and now ya'all are back to fear mongering...
Cry me a river...
Folks blow off steam in private conversations.
Trump being an alpha male in private conversations???
Once again, we see two different standards. One for those with a -D after their names, one for those with a -R after their names..
My gods, you people REALLY can't see how utterly bigoted ya'all are???
We have ya'all's hysterical fear-mongering regarding getting rid of Odumbo's Internet Killing regulations...
The Internet Is Free Again
Killing Obama-era rules will remove the FCC as political gatekeeper.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-internet-is-free-again-1513297405
And then there are the facts...
419
Regulators abolish 'net neutrality' rules in heated hearing that was stopped because of a BOMB threat as protesters rallied outside
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5180015/Protesters-gather-U-S-regulators-meet-end-net-neutrality.html
That's how Democrats address political issues...
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