The year Democrats’ “social change” coalition hits low tide
WASHINGTON – Tuesday is shaping up as a bad day for the Democratic Party’s “Social Change” coalition. The results from Election Day are expected to boost Republicans to new heights.
The outcome could change. Many races are considered toss-ups. But the polls indicate, and Democratic strategists conceded to The Washington Post, that Democrats will lose more than a handful of seats in the Senate and in the House. Republicans would enjoy their largest House majority in decades and their first majority in the Senate since 2006.
The late Democratic strategist Fred Dutton would be disappointed. Although unheralded, Dutton helped form the national Democratic Party of today.
In the late 1960s, Dutton envisioned a far-reaching and long-lasting political alliance of “campus-ghetto-suburb.” With racial and generational unrest sweeping the country, he argued the party needed to tear down the its “New Deal” coalition and replace it with a “Social Change” coalition.
Loosen the party’s ties with Catholic voters, Dutton argued in the 1971 book Changing Sources of Power; they are “a major redoubt of traditional Americanism and of the antinegro, antiyouth vote.” Build ties with young adults, minorities, and college-educated voters, he urged Democrats in one internal party memo from 1969; the three constituencies would help the party not only give expression to the “insurgent impulses” abroad in the land, but also to win elections as “the lower middle class, blue-collar vote erodes.”
Dutton’s coalition has had mixed results of late. On one hand, Barack Obama used it to win two presidential elections and received more than half of the popular vote in 2008 and 2012. And Democrats point to many policy accomplishments of the last six years: The jobless rate has fallen to 5.9 percent; a gallon of gas dropped to less than $3; nearly all of the U.S. troops from Iraq are home now.
On the other hand, Democrats lost 63 seats in the House in the congressional mid-term election of 2010. And Republicans blame Obama for notable policy failures: The radical Islamic State group has taken control of swaths of Iraq and Syria; the labor force participation rate has dipped to the low 60s; and Americans fear that Ebola could overtake the country.
In the sixth year of their presidencies, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush saw their parties lose seats in Congress. But the country’s latest woes have made President Obama a bigger liability for Democrats in competitive races. Obama’s approval rating is 41.9 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics poll of averages.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, too, is a drag on the Democratic ticket in competitive House seats. Yet Obama’s low job-approval numbers have stunted the party’s appeal to young and minority voters.
In the past two presidential elections, minorities and young people voted at levels comparable with older and white voters. But in midterm elections, minority and young people’s voting participation rates drop. Culturally liberal Democratic candidates and policies suffer as a result. For example, the House of Representatives passed several pro-life bills after Republicans regained control of the lower chamber in 2011.
In the West, upper Midwest, and Northeast, culturally liberal candidates and policies dominate already. In Rhode Island, Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence criticized both the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial nominees for supporting loose abortion laws. In Oregon, Republican Senate candidate Monica Wehby said she supports same-sex "marriage."
But in the Mountain West, Plains, and South, culturally liberal candidates and policies struggle. Here are four races in which they do:
Colorado
Senator Mark Udall, a pro-choice Democrat, has attacked Rep. Cory Gardner, a pro-life Republican, as an enemy of women in general and single-female voters specifically. For months, Udall’s attacks worked. As late as September, he held a narrow lead over Gardner. But now Udall trails in the race. He is down 2.5 percent points, according to the RealClearPolitics poll of averages.
Democrats have seen this movie before, and they liked the way it turned out. In 2010, Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet trailed Republican Ken Buck by three percentage points on Election Day. Bennet eked out a 0.9 percentage point victory.
Democratic strategist Jill Hannauer predicted to Aleteia that superior Democratic organization will carry Udall across the finish line to victory. “Democrats have a field operation better than anywhere else in the country. Our progressives are battle-tested after 2010,” said Hannauer, president of Project New America and a former president of the Colorado chapter of NARAL.
Yet Colorado Republicans like their chances too. “I think on the final day we’re going to see Udall go down,” a Colorado communication strategist said. “I think if he loses it will because of a direct backlash from his ‘war on women’ ads.”
Louisiana
Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu is expected to oppose Rep. Bill Cassidy, a Republican, in a runoff election December 6. Neither candidate is likely to get more than half of the vote required by the state’s winner-take-all law.
Landrieu trails Cassidy by 5 points in a head-to-head matchup. Her vote for the Affordable Care Act in 2009 has undermined her candidacy in the eyes of the state’s voters. But Landrieu has won three statewide elections before, and her campaign has made fresh appeals to the state’s white Catholic voters in the southwest and south central parts of the state, according to The New York Times.
Tennessee
The state’s voters will have a referendum that would let them, rather than judges, set state abortion policy. In 2000, the state’s Supreme Court declared that abortion was a fundamental right for women. But pro-life organizers got Amendment 1 on the state ballot that sought to change this equation. “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protests right to abortion or requires the funding of abortion. The people retain their rights through their elected state representatives and state senators to enact, amend, or repeal statutes regarding abortion, including but not limited to circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or inasmuch when necessary to save the life of the mother,” the initiative reads.
An October poll from Middle Tennessee State University showed the “Yes” on Amendment 1 ahead 39-32 percent. Fifteen percent were undecided.
Maryland
Democratic Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown should coast to election as governor of the Free State, according to election experts. Democrats enjoy a double-digit advantage among registered voters and a two-to-one margin in the state legislature. But the state’s health exchange never got off the ground, wasting tens of millions of dollars. And state taxes have been raised.
Anne Arundel County businessman Larry Hogan has attacked Brown both on his economic and social liberalism. According to the RealClearPolitics poll of averages, the race is a toss-up. But Nathan Gonzales, deputy political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, doubts Hogan can become the state’s second Republican governor in the last 40 years. “The idea that Hogan can get to 50-plus-one percent of the vote is a real stretch,” Gonzales said.
Mark Stricherz covers Washington for Aleteia. He is author of Why the Democrats are Blue.
