GOP unfazed by ‘doomsday’ warnings
Party leaders point to majorities in legislative bodies
Tennessee Republican Party chairman Ryan Haynes has a news flash for anyone who says the GOP is in danger of becoming extinct unless it gets on board with gay marriage, Obamacare or immigration reform:
Look at the commanding number of Republicans in Congress (54 out of 100 in the Senate, 246 of 435 in the House), the number of GOP governors (31 out of 50) or the number of state legislative bodies across the country that are controlled by the GOP (68 of 98).
Look at Tennessee, a red state that has gotten even redder in the era of President Barack Oba ma . Repub - licans hold both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats and a 7-to -2 adva ntage over Democrats in the state’s U.S. House delegation. In Nashville, the GOP holds the governor’s office, 73 of 99 seats in the Tennessee House and 28 of 33 seats in the Tennessee Senate.
Those are not the numbers of a dying party, Haynes said, but one that is politically dominant.
“Obviously, we don’t have the White House,” he said. “But I think that’s going to change.”
National political analysts have been warning for some time of dark days ahead for the GOP, citing disenchantment with the party among Latino voters who are gaining influence in the electorate and among young voters who tend to have a live-and-let-live attitude when it comes to same-sex marriage and other social issues.
The doomsday predictions were back in the headlines last month after a pair of U. S. Supreme Court rulings that declared same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states and upheld the government subsidies that more than 8 million Americans have used to help buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.
Many Republicans blasted both decisions as examples of judicial overreach. But a CNN poll showed that most Americans thought the justices made the right call (63 percent supported the court’s ruling on Obamacare subsidies; 59 percent backed the gay-marriage decision). On gay marriage, polls have consistently shown that six out of 10 Americans favor legalizing same-sex unions.
Haynes, who took the reins of the state GOP in April, rejects the narrative that the gap between public opinion and the party’s stance on marriage and other issues is a sign the GOP is out of touch and eventually will see the consequences at the ballot box. If anything, he insists, it shows that “we’re a party that’s big enough to have diverse ideas and different viewpoints.”
U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. of Knoxville, the longest-serving member of the state’s congressional delegation, also doubts that GOP opposition to gay marriage, Obamacare or immigration reform will hurt it at the polls, even in the long run.
“The social issues are not the
biggest issues to most people,” said Duncan, who has served in Congress for more than a quarter-century. “As you get closer to every election — and it has been this way for a long, long time — it’s the economy.”
The long-term challenge for Republicans will not be red-state elections, but the presidential race, where the Latino population is more influential and is growing, said Bruce Oppenheimer, a Vanderbilt University political scientist who studies elections.
“Clearly, at the presidential level, (Republicans) have to worry,” he said.
In some states with heavy Latino populations, U. S. Senate races also couldbe a problem for the GOP, Oppenheimer said.
In Tennessee, the question is not whether the state will remain red — that is likely for the foreseeable future — but whether it will keep electing more moderate, establishment Republicans, such as Gov. Bill Haslam and U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, or whether the party’s newer, ultra conservative wing will start winning statewide primaries, Oppenheimer said.
Alexander was re-elected last year by fighting off a tea party-styled challenger in a closer-thanexpected race.
“The next go-round couldbe a different story,” Oppenheimer said.