State’s Democrats get a boost as they look to gain in 2018 midterms
One year after Donald Trump’s election as president crushed liberals’ hopes and reshaped America’s political map, Democrats woke up Wednesday morning to an unfamiliar sensation: optimism.
As they celebrated wins in Virginia, New Jersey, Washington and other states, ebullient California Democrats were already focusing on House races next year, arguing that their victories on Tuesday could presage a bluewave in 2018— and potentially lead to Democrats taking back the House.
Since Trump’s election, “there’s still a little bit of PTSD in a lot of Democrats,” said Maclen Zilber, a Democratic consultant in Los Angeles working on several California
House races. “That’s why you’re seeing such jubilation that maybe the tide is turning.”
After a series of losses in red- state special elections this year, Democrats finally had the night they needed to prove that the much-heralded “Trump resistance” movement can be an electoral force. They notched a showy win in the Virginia governor’s race, where Ralph Northam won by nearly nine points.
The New Jersey governor’s race was a Democratic blowout. Maine voters approved a Medicaid expansion by a 20-point margin, a vote that was seenas a referendum on former President Barack Obama’s health care law.
Republicans will still control far more statehouses than Democrats around the country — 26 to eight after Tuesday. The Democrats’ biggest wins were in blue states. And a lot can change in the year left before the 2018 midterm elections, when the Democrats will need to gain 24 seats to recapture the House.
But Democrats showed that anti-Trump anger could spur a huge turnout even in an off-year election. Virginia saw the highest voter turnout in a governor’s race in 20 years, despite a rainy election day.
Many Democrats are especially enthused about their wins in the Virginia House of Delegates, which swung from a wide Republican advantage to a close divide between the two parties (a few seats are still too close to call). Because these down- ballot candidates tend to be less well-known by voters than statewide candidates, some political analysts say the results show the increased support for candidates with a D next to their name compared to those with an R.
Demographically, many of the suburban Washington, D.C., districts where Democrats performed the best are similar to key Orange County and San Diegoarea Republican-held House seats in California. These districts tend to have more affluent and collegeeducated voters. They also voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“A very large fraction of Virginia voters were deliberately casting a vote against Trump,” said Jack Pitney, a former GOP official who now teaches politics and government at Claremont McKenna College. “If that pattern repeats itself in California, suburban Republicans should be concerned.”
Republicans also took a beating in New York, where the GOP executives of suburban Westchester and Nassau counties were unseated by Democrats.
And by winning a special Senate election in Washington, Democrats erected a “blue wall” along the West Coast. Washington state will now join California and Oregon as states where Democrats control the governor’s office and both houses of the Legislature. That lays the groundwork for new progressive policies like universal health care or perhaps even a regional cap-and-trade system aimed at reducing global warming.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D- San Francisco, told reporters on Wednesday: “The door is certainly opened for us” to take back the House.
Some Democrats are also hopeful that they could take back the Senate— although, with more Democratic incumbents up for election in states won by Trump, that will be a lot tougher.
And many political analysts caution against drawing overly broad conclusions about Tuesday’s election results. Most of the districts Democrats won were solidly blue-leaning, so it doesn’t necessarily mean Democrats will succeed in retaking the House next year on more Republican-friendly terrain.
California’s House Republicans are well aware of the tough election fights facing them, said Ken Khachigian, a GOP strategist in Orange County. “There’s nobody sitting back on their haunches,” he said.
“Our incumbents have their own well- defined brands that are independent,” said Jack Pandol, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “It’s a higher bar for Democrats to be able to knock off these incumbents, especially if they’re relying solely on the national environment to carry them over the finish line.”
Several Democrats pointed to party unity as a powerful asset in Virginia. After Northam beat a more progressive opponent, Tom Perriello, in the primary, Perriello wholeheartedly endorsed and then campaigned for Northam — avoiding the Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders schism that bedeviled the party in 2016.
It remains to be seen whether California Democrats will come together as effectively. There are still hard feelings among party activists from the bruising, contested race for state party chair earlier this year. Last week, two of the top Democrats running against Darrell Issa, R-Vista, arguably the most vulnerable House Republican in the country, started attacking each other over fundraising numbers and who was themost qualified.
Democratic leaders also are hoping that Tuesday’s results could inspire more Republican incumbents to retire and more Democratic candidates to jump into races. Already, more than two dozen House Republicans around the country — although none from California — have announced that they’re calling it quits.
Since Tuesday night, some Democratic and liberal groups have similarly reported spikes in fundraising. “When you win, there’s a cascade of goodwill,” said Bay Area Democratic strategist Katie Merrill.
Tuesday was also a banner night for women, minority and LGBT candidates. Transgender candidates made history in several races: Virginians elected Danica Roem, a former journalist who will be the nation’s first openly transgender state lawmaker. Andrea Jenkins won a City Council seat in Minneapolis, and Tyler Titus won a school board race in Pennsylvania.
In California, Lisa Middleton won a City Council seat in Palm Springs, becoming the first openly transgender, nonjudicial elected official in the state.
“What we saw last night was a response to the divisiveness coming from our president,” Middleton said Wednesday. “People are looking for a different kind of leadership.”