Why Do Democrats Routinely Lose Local And State Elections?
Democrats have lost big in the last two mid-term elections including the recent loss of an important governor’s race in Kentucky. They must start winning off-year elections. They are severely outnumbered in the House due to losses in mid-term elections. We see the Democrats losing in state elections and local progressive ballot initiatives.
This issue has its complexities, but there are solutions. There is the issue of gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is a problem brought on by low voter turnout in statewide elections by the Democrats. In the Republican Party, liberty has given way to gerrymandering.
In 2014 mid-terms in the House alone we saw Republicans gain 57 percent of the House. How could this have happened when the GOP only got 52 percent of the vote? In 2010 mid-terms Democrats stayed home and the Republicans gained governorship in several key states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania. These Republican governors went right to work gerrymandering the hell out of their states. What resulted in 2014 was an uneven number of Republicans elected compared to the overall vote totals in those states.
In the Quaker State, Democrats won 44 percent of the votes but only sent five representatives to the House. The Republican total was 18. In the Tarheel State, Democrats also won 44 percent of the vote and sent three representatives to the House while the GOP sent 10.
What gerrymandering has allowed is making it easy for congressional politicians to get reelected. The reelection rate is a staggering 96 percent. What is startling is that the overall approval rating of Congress is just 11 percent. According to “The Cook Political Report” there will be only 20 competitive races in 2016 out of 435 races. No matter the outcome of 2016 presidential election and even if the Democrats can regain control of the Senate the Republicans will still hold a vast majority in the United States Congress.
Democrats are going to have start winning local and state elections to turn this injustice around. We have to stop losing important governors races like the most recent loss in Kentucky.
Yes, gerrymandering has been a self-inflicted wound by the Democrats. Why? The Democrats have failed to turn out and vote. In the most recent Democrat loss in Kentucky, the voter turnout for Democrats was low. This election was a life or death issue for people who depend on Medicaid in Kentucky. With the election of a Republican, lives that could have been saved may now be lost. It’s as cut and dried as that.
The Democratic National Committee And State Chapters As Well Need To Stop Sucking At Messaging.
The successful Republican governor in Kentucky Matt Bevin ran as his primary theme to repeal Medicaid Expansion in that state. Bevin has backtracked some on the issues but vows to freeze the program. If Bevin is successful thousands of citizens in that state will lose their coverage. What is sad – most will be low income and elderly.
What sucks big time is that Kentucky one of the poorest states and was a poster child of success for the Affordable Care Act. With Democratic Governor Steve Beshear accepting Medicaid Expansion in 2014, the state saw 530,000 citizens added to Medicaid. The rate of the uninsured dropped six percentage points in just one year.
So why did the Democrats lose in Kentucky? It’s real simple – the Democrats suck at messaging. They should have run on the message that voting Republican would kill people. Because the reality of that is true no matter how harsh it may sound.
Democrats Need To Grow A Backbone
Democrats need to stop pussy footing around and present the issues to the people just as they are – as life or death. Democrats need to do a better job of calling out the GOP on all the BS they are advocating. Democratic National Committee (DNC) headed up by Debbie Wasserman Schultz has done an awful job conveying the importance of these life or death issues. People need to be emotionally invested in the issues. Republicans want to take away your healthcare. The Republicans inaction on climate change will destroy the places we love. Locking people up in jails for non-violent crimes is destroying individuals and families. Allowing big money influence peddling is killing our democracy.
One solution for the Democrats would be to start looking for electable governor candidates for the 2020 election. Stop waiting until the last minute. We need to re-energize our efforts in the rural areas. We need to educate the politically uneducated poor white southern voters to stop voting against their best interest.
We The People who know that politics does matter need to have our fact checker hats on and make sure the public knows each and every lie put out by the Republicans.
But the number one solution to the problem is “The Democrats Need To Get The Vote Out To Win!” We must stop assuming that we will win. We must stop believing the Republican Party is dying. Yes, the Republican base is dying but the facts show the GOP voters swarm the polls like wolves on a fresh kill. The Republican voters exercise their right to vote both in off year and presidential elections. These mostly uninformed voters will simply pull the (R) button no matter if it is in their best interest or not.
The Democrats must do a better job of getting their message out. They must get liberals, progressives, and independent voters fired up. The Republicans play dirty. For Democrats to win, they must circumvent these dirty tactics by the GOP and simply get out to vote. There is way to much to lose in 2016 by not doing so.
Featured Image by Collin Knopp-Schwyn via Flickr available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
