What Went Down In The 2018 Midterms
I haven’t gotten to read the whole thing yet, but several people on Twitter have linked to a piece about the Democratic Party that the Intercept’s Ryan Grim published yesterday. Grim’s main paragraphs ring true to what I have seen — the Democratic mobilization against Trump has been led by activists outside of Washington, not the party establishment. The women’s march was organized totally outside of the party apparatus, and the Democratic Party never would pumped the kind of money into Beto O’Rourke’s campaign that his grassroots supporters have.
This is not to say that party leaders or Democrats in Washington have not mattered. Getting every congressional Democrat, even those in red states, to oppose the Obamacare repeal was an important part of the anti-Trump movement, and that did happen in Washington and was orchestrated in part by Democratic leaders in Congress. And if Democrats win the House, the party leaders’ decision to make health care (instead of Trump hate) basically the center of the party’s campaign strategy will be validated.
From Grim’s piece:
“It was never guaranteed that there would be widespread, powerful resistance to the Trump administration, or that Democrats would be able to plausibly challenge Republicans for control of the House in less than two years. Indeed, the leadership of the Democratic Party was ripe with talk of compromising, even as Trump’s circle praised former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s use of internment camps during World War II.
The last two years of party-building and pushback belong to a multiethnic, multigenerational, and multifaceted collection of movement activists, largely led by women in support of women, activated by a catastrophic election that uncorked a latent power that had long been dormant on the political scene. Over and over, candidates and volunteers have said that the last time they saw a mobilization that was anywhere near as passionate and expansive was on behalf of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Unlike in 2008, there is no centralized leadership this year. That means that, even after the votes are tallied on Tuesday, there’s nobody to tell them to go home. The Democratic Party is stuck with them.”
Democrats have consistently led in our generic ballot tracker, which measures what party respondents would support in a generic congressional election. They’re currently outpacing the Republicans by 8.7 percentage points. Our final forecast suggests the Democrats are favored to take control of the House if they win the popular vote by at least 5.6 points.
Hey, Ollie, turns out there are MORE Alaska stickers. Jenny L. Miller tells me that these are part of a series by Juneau artist @alaskarobotics.
