New York Times
Around the country, in key Senate and House races, Democrats will be presented with some Democratic nominees who are more progressive or moderate than they are and who have discrete positions that unsettle them, individual warts that offend them, biographies that aren’t to their liking.
But this time around, the risks of being turned off and turning away are much greater than usual. There’s a kind of reckoning at hand. Either Trump is the threat that his impassioned detractors have made him out to be and they’ll cast ballots that reflect that or they won’t, because the specter of an unimpeded, full-throttle Trump actually pales next to their quarrels with and pique at Democratic candidates they dislike. He’s not all that terrifying to them after all.
In my newsletter a week ago, I pushed back at any Democratic overconfidence about the midterms, noting all the wild cards in play over the next six months. I mentioned ongoing gerrymandering, and on Wednesday, the Supreme Court further gutted the Voting Rights Act, a decision that could clear the way for new, more Republican-friendly congressional maps in several states, including Louisiana and Tennessee. Around the same time as that ruling, Florida finalized plans for an aggressive new gerrymander.
But I also warned about tensions within the Democratic Party and whether the outcomes of primaries in crucial states could have a negative impact on party enthusiasm and turnout.
Democratic leaders have identified Texas as a plausible opportunity to flip a Senate seat from red to blue; a recent poll by Texas Public Opinion Research bolstered that thinking by showing the Democratic nominee, James Talarico, with a slight lead over either of his possible Republican opponents, who are headed to a runoff on May 26.
Around the country, in key Senate and House races, Democrats will be presented with some Democratic nominees who are more progressive or moderate than they are and who have discrete positions that unsettle them, individual warts that offend them, biographies that aren’t to their liking.
But this time around, the risks of being turned off and turning away are much greater than usual. There’s a kind of reckoning at hand. Either Trump is the threat that his impassioned detractors have made him out to be and they’ll cast ballots that reflect that or they won’t, because the specter of an unimpeded, full-throttle Trump actually pales next to their quarrels with and pique at Democratic candidates they dislike. He’s not all that terrifying to them after all.
In my newsletter a week ago, I pushed back at any Democratic overconfidence about the midterms, noting all the wild cards in play over the next six months. I mentioned ongoing gerrymandering, and on Wednesday, the Supreme Court further gutted the Voting Rights Act, a decision that could clear the way for new, more Republican-friendly congressional maps in several states, including Louisiana and Tennessee. Around the same time as that ruling, Florida finalized plans for an aggressive new gerrymander.
But I also warned about tensions within the Democratic Party and whether the outcomes of primaries in crucial states could have a negative impact on party enthusiasm and turnout.
Democratic leaders have identified Texas as a plausible opportunity to flip a Senate seat from red to blue; a recent poll by Texas Public Opinion Research bolstered that thinking by showing the Democratic nominee, James Talarico, with a slight lead over either of his possible Republican opponents, who are headed to a runoff on May 26.
But Talarico’s victory in the Democratic primary in early March came after a nasty battle with his rival, Jasmine Crockett, some of whose supporters accused Talarico of racially bigoted comments. Will they nonetheless turn out for him in November? They should if they see Trump as the greater evil. What they wind up doing hinges partly on the strength of that conviction.
If I had my way, I’d elevate moderate Democrats in every state and district that’s not firmly in the red or blue column and that’s genuinely up for grabs. I concur with an important essay by the editorial board of The Times in October that laid out the wisdom of that approach:
If I had my way, I’d elevate moderate Democrats in every state and district that’s not firmly in the red or blue column and that’s genuinely up for grabs. I concur with an important essay by the editorial board of The Times in October that laid out the wisdom of that approach:
“Candidates closer to the political center, from both parties, continue to fare better in most elections than those farther to the right or left. This pattern may be the strongest one in electoral politics today.”
1 comment:
James Talarico resembles Jasmine Crockett, albeit under a different guise. Talarico is articulating messages that resonate with the public, which poses a risk given the naivety often displayed by Democrats.
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