Posted on 02/23/2017 11:00:02 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Liberals may need to decide whether to focus on energizing their base or expanding their coalition.
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, who is up for reelection in the red state of Missouri in 2018, recently told a St. Louis radio host she may face a primary challenge. “I may have a primary because there is, in our party now, some of the same kind of enthusiasm at the base that the Republican Party had with the Tea Party,” she said during an interview earlier this month. “Many of those people are very impatient with me because they don’t think I’m pure,” she added.
As the Democratic Party contemplates what’s next in the wake of its defeat in the presidential election, liberals may have to decide what matters more: Building a big tent party where far-left voters and moderate centrists can co-exist even if they occasionally disagree on policy and strategy, or focusing on the demands of the party’s progressive base, potentially creating a more like-minded and ideologically rigid coalition in the process.
In an effort to persuade Democrats to embrace a big-tent strategy, Third Way, a center-left think tank, argues in a new report that voters aren’t necessarily rigidly attached to a particular party, and might be won over as a result. The report, titled “Why Demography Does Not Equal Destiny,” concludes that demographic change in the United States won’t deliver Democrats a winning electoral coalition by default, but that there are still opportunities for the party to convince Americans to vote for Democratic candidates even if they haven’t always done so in the past.
“There are definitely persuadable voters out there and the question we should be asking right now is: ‘Who can be persuaded to embrace our vision of the future?’” report co-author Lanae Erickson Hatalsky of Third Way said in an interview. “The idea that there was this rising electorate that would automatically deliver progressive victories wooed us away from doing the hard work of trying to find common ground with people since it seemed easier to just find people who agreed with us.”
Erickson Hatalsky argues that voting trends suggest that some voters swing back and forth between the two parties rather than remain consistently loyal to one party or the other. For example, hundreds of counties across the United States flipped from voting for Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election to voting for Trump in 2016. Some congressional districts also delivered victory for Trump while at the same time reelecting Democratic members of Congress, like Cheri Bustos in Illinois and Matt Cartwright in Pennsylvania.
“There are clearly people out there who have not decided that they vote for only one party,” Erickson Hatalsky said. “I think that’s hopeful because it indicates that if the Democratic Party takes the time to listen to what it is that these people are looking for, we may be able to expand our coalition.”
The report notes that there has been a rise in the number of voters who identify as independent in recent years, and suggests that they could be a potential target for the Democratic Party. Some political scientists, however, maintain that independent voters are really partisans in disguise—people who may not want to publicly identify as a Republican or a Democrat, but nevertheless consistently vote for candidates of a particular party. Third Way has challenged this conclusion, and does so in the report by tracking how independents have swung as a voting bloc back-and-forth between voting for Democrats to Republicans in presidential elections dating back to 1976.
“Independents lean toward one party or another, and vote for that party, over shorter time horizons, but this trend shows that over longer time horizons partisan loyalties are not fixed in place for independent voters,” Erickson Hatalsky said.
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But what if there isn’t a significant number of voters available for Democrats to win over or win back? What if, instead, the partisan battle lines are now firmly entrenched, and spending time, energy, and effort trying to change hearts and minds proves to be a losing proposition for the party?
Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University, is skeptical that Democrats can significantly grow their base by converting large numbers of either Republicans or Trump voters. He believes Democrats would be more effective if they focused on increasing turnout of core Democratic constituencies, such as African American, Hispanic, and younger voters.
“There’s a reason why campaigns are devoting more and more resources trying to energize the base rather than trying to persuade people. It’s because trying to persuade people is extremely difficult in this day and age,” Abramowitz said in an interview. “That’s not to say there won’t ever be any movement back and forth between parties,” he added, “but I just don’t see there being any large number of movable voters.”
Abramowitz notes that looking back at the voting behavior of independents spanning the past several decades may fail to adequately recognize that party loyalties are much stronger today than in the 1970s and 80s. Instead, he points to increasing ideological division among voters in recent years and what he calls “negative partisanship”—a phenomenon whereby animosity toward the opposing party becomes a driving factor behind how a person decides to vote—to argue that there likely isn’t a significant number of voters up for grabs.
Erickson Hatalsky acknowledges “there’s little evidence to suggest there’s a whole swath of Democratic voters sitting at home who are just waiting to come out if we excite them.” But, she added, “if we are going to build a progressive coalition that can dig Democrats out of their hole at the state and local level and get them back into the White House, we can’t write people off either. Voters who went for Obama and then Trump cannot be deemed unreachable for Democrats, and neither can voters in states that voted for Trump, but have continued to elect Democrats to Congress. To do so, is to accept permanent status as a coastal, urban, powerless party.”
As the centrist wing of the Democratic party attempts to make its case, it will have to contend with an increasingly restive progressive base. A wave of protests across the country—including the Women’s March and rallies in opposition to the first iteration of President Trump’s travel ban—seem to have convinced at least some Democrats in Congress to become increasingly uncompromising in their opposition to the president’s priorities. Progressives are also organizing in the aftermath of the election with the explicit aim of launching primary challenges against Democrats they deem not rigid enough in their opposition to Trump.
If centrist Democrats want to ensure that the Democratic Party embraces a big-tent strategy, they will need to convince skeptical voters of the merits of the party. They may also need to convince progressive members of their own party of the merits of that strategy. And that could be a difficult task. Some progressive groups view Third Way’s centrist political ambitions as emblematic of the type of establishment politics they believe failed the Democratic Party during the presidential election, and are likely to push back on, or outright reject, whatever the think tank suggests as a result.
But perhaps the most salient challenge for Democrats all across the partisan spectrum will be whether they can accept political reality—whatever that may be—and what it dictates about the future of the political left, even if it contradicts their own vision of what the party should look like.
I’m for Muzie Ellison to head the DNC!
They ain’t winning back all the states Obama won in 2008, no matter what they do. They risk losing at least 10 more Senate seats and several governorships. All of them, Democrats in red states.
I’m looking forward to the races in 2018. It was the civil unrest of BLM which added to the enthusiasm for DJT, and it will be the continued antics of the Left which help decide the election in swing states.
The underwhelming performance of the McConnell and the GOPe in Congress might be the biggest threat to winning those purple states. Hopefully, some pressure will be applied which gets them to act.
It is not a question of the Dems winning back voters, it is a question of Repubs KEEPING voters in 2018.
The Repub foot dragging on Trump’s agenda (repeal Obamacare, tax cuts, funding the Wall, etc...) will keep Repub voters at home in Nov. 2018 and the Dems will take the House and maybe the Senate.
If that happens, then Trump will be a “one and done” president.
This may be the Establishment’s plan.
You’re absolutely right, and I keep screaming it out loud. GO HARD LEFT!! It’s what the American people want!
If they expect to stop the hemorrhaging, they had better elect Keith Ellison as their new Chair...the new face of the Democrat Party.
There is certainly room for a 2nd major party. But if the Ds keep priorities like “suing nuns” and “putting male genitals in female locker rooms” and anyone who disagrees is “far right”, then NO they will not be that 2nd major party.
Trump/republican/”far right” will keep attracting the middle when the alternative is “far insane”. Ds are redefining “far right” to include those middle voters. Ds will be the party of LA, SF, NYC and a few other places where “far insane” is a good thing but hardly a major national party.
Oh, she’s trying to pretend to not be like all those other democrats - it’s not going to work, we’re kicking her out next time.
They have a lot more senate senate seats up for grabs than Republicans in 2018. Which means that Republicans are likely to make more gains in 2018.
GOP has 9 seats up for grabs.
DNC has 23.
I’m not sure that the Democrats can win back the voters who have traditionally supported them but voted for Trump last November. The GOP, however, can drive those voters back to the Democrats by blocking or watering-down many of the campaign promises that were made. So those voters aren’t for the Democrats to win, they’re for the Republicans to lose. Don’t screw it up, Congress.
“...As the centrist wing of the Democratic party attempts to make its case...”
There is no such thing.
GOP has 9 seats up for grabs.
DNC has 23.
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good info. Still you need to turn out the popular vote to get whats up for grabs. The electoral college won’t do it for US.
Before the elections in 2018 we need to:
Build that dayum Wall
Deport 2 or 3 million at least
AND DON’T LET THEM COME BACK
Redo our election systems so you must show a picture ID and be a Citizen to vote.
Nuke that damn Filibuster so we can pass FAST, the necessary
laws to insure our Elections are as fraud proof as possible.
and we need to Keep on Winning...that will impress the young
people more than the left wing regressive diatribes. The Latino vote needs to be gone after....we have many things in common with them....Family Values against abortion and homosexuality.
viva Trump VIVA OUR USA.
I think we will have many of those goals being actively being accomplished by 2018. at the same time the DNC may still be tearing themselves apart.
The Dems screwed up badly trying to push hillary.
I cannot see a scenario where the Democrats will gain back ground for at least the next six years. President Trump is already off to a fast start with regard to keeping his promises and his Administration isn't even running on all cylinders yet. I see bigtime GOP gains in 2018 mid-terms (especially in senate) and a landslide Trump re-election in 2020. Maybe in 2022, the Dems are able to dial the GOP gains back a bit. But they will have to move a lot closer to the center to win decent people back. We'll see.
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