To win at home, Dems sidestep Washington’s ‘blazing inferno’
Party puts Russia probe on backburner to focus on issues important to working-class voters
WASHINGTON — As the nation’s capital was rocked by revelation after revelation from the investigation into any connection between the Trump campaign and Russia, Democrats in Washington were focused on what they saw as nothing less than saving the republic.
More than 1,800 miles away, Rob Quist, a Democratic candidate in one of the House special elections that will gauge the mood of the country this spring, was concentrating on high insurance premiums, not high crimes.
Quist, who is running to fill the seat vacated by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, was in Wolf Point, Mont., assailing his Republican rival, Greg Gianforte, over the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. The appearance was part of a weeklong “Hands Off Our Health Care” tour that Democrats hope will hand them an upset May 25.
“Russia is important to the American public, but health care hits home directly in people’s lives,” said Nancy Keenan, executive director of the Montana Democratic Party. “Regular Montanans are talking about the heck of a spring snowstorm we just had, this health care bill, the stuff that’s hitting them every single day. They know something is amiss in Washington, but in their everyday lives it doesn’t affect them right now.”
The contrast between what Democrats in Washington are consumed by and what their candidates are running on illustrates an emerging challenge for the party as the president becomes ever more engulfed in controversy: For all the misfortunes facing their foe in the White House, Democrats have yet to devise a coherent message on the policies that President Donald Trump used to draw working-class voters to his campaign.
And at least for now, the voters whom Democrats need to win back are more focused on their own troubles than those of the president.
Democrats outside Washington say congressional leaders will have to cede some of their leadership on other issues to state and local officials.
“We need these folks up here dealing with all the investigations and all that stuff. It’s important,” Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia said during a visit to the capital Tuesday. “But to think they’re going to drive an economic message with this blazing inferno going on today is just not realistic.”
McAuliffe was in town for a daylong “ideas conference” sponsored by the liberal research group Center for American Progress. The event was designed to showcase the next-generation leadership of the party and highlight an agenda that Democrats can run on next year.
But the gathering mostly revealed how difficult it still is for progressives to present their message while Trump is grabbing new headlines by the hour.
A raft of potential 2020 presidential candidates showed up, each armed with a policy theme in the hope of standing out. Sen. Kamala Harris of California had prepared a speech on criminal justice and drug policy, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York came ready to discuss family leave law and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts brought proposals about how to combat the scourge of “concentrated money and concentrated power.”
Yet each of the senators, along with many other participants, had little choice but to address that day’s eruption of Trump news: revelations that he had disclosed classified intelligence about the Islamic State to the Russians during a meeting this month.
“I was prepared to lay out a case today for how President Trump is routinely betraying the working-class voters he pledged to fight for, from his budget to his tax plan to his health care plan and more,” Gillibrand said. “But last night’s reporting has taken us to a whole new level of abnormal. This is not business as usual.”
Part of the conundrum for the Democrats eyeing the presidency, a roster that may be more than 20 deep, is that they would look out of step with the party base if they did not speak out aggressively against Trump’s conduct. As demonstrated last week when a series of Democrats competing in statewide primaries called for the president’s impeachment, there is a growing hunger among rank-and-file progressive activists to remove Trump from office.
To ultimately be on the wrong side after that litmus test could prove dangerous in a nomination fight.
But the obsessions of the most intense partisans have not fully resonated with the broader electorate. Asked whether they approved of Trump’s decision to fire James Comey as director of the FBI — the news equivalent of a four-alarm fire in Washington — 32 percent of voters in an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll this month responded that they did not know enough to say. That figure was about halfway between the percentage of people who said they supported the firing and those who opposed the move.
Some in the party are gamely trying to break through on the policy front, as Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii demonstrated Friday shortly after yet more developments related to Trump were reported. In an all-caps Twitter post, Schatz wrote, in part, that in the middle of the White House’s troubles, “they are still trying to take away your health care and ruin the internet.”
And those Democrats facing voters next year in states Trump won are particularly eager to shift attention to policy, to demonstrate to voters they are focused on their most pressing concerns.
Democratic strategists overseeing the party’s planning for the midterm elections believe that at the moment, the president’s difficulties will chiefly affect Republican recruitment, making it more difficult for them to persuade candidates to run against Trumpcreated headwinds.
But the ultimate impact of Trump’s troubles may not be truly known until well after the special House elections. In those contests, scheduled for the coming weeks in red-tinted Montana, South Carolina and Georgia, none of the Democratic candidates are running on the Trump campaign investigation.