The way forward for Democrats? Hope in change

Remember “hope and change”? It would be wise for Democrats going forward to remember that Obama mantra. Even after all we’ve gone through in the past year—from the Russian hacking to the subsequent Trump victory—we’ve still got hope and change. In fact, you might say it’s all we’ve got. So now hope rests on change. Democrats have to embrace both.

Change gives us reason for hope. And, in 2017, signs of incremental change are everywhere, from the energized resistance to the Trump agenda to the excellent crop of new candidates eager to represent the party.

On Tuesday, August 8th, Democrat Phil Miller won a special election to represent Iowa House District 82. Miller, a 65-year-old veterinarian and school board president, beat his Republican challenger by nine points. It wasn’t complete change—the seat had been held since 2009 by Democratic Rep. Curt Hanson whose death in June left it open. But this was a district that Donald Trump had won by 21 points. The results of this latest election show that swing state Iowa is still swinging.

{mosads}As candidate Miller himself said “It’s looking more and more like what happened in 2016 … people who were feeling left behind and disaffected by the system wanted to shake things up a little bit. But now they’re able to see what the policy effects of that are and both at the national level and the state level they’re not happy with that.” In other words, they’re going to keep on shaking things up until they like what they see. That’s good news for Democrats.

Meanwhile, just a few days earlier in West Virginia, we were reminded that change cuts both ways. At a raucous Trump campaign-style rally, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice announced that he was changing his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. Again, this wasn’t exactly a sea-change. Justice is a billionaire coal man who had previously been a Democrat (something Justice shares with President Trump.)

But Justice’s switch shows the massive realignment that took place over the past few years. West Virginia used to be reliably Democratic, but now regularly votes Republican. The state legislature went to the GOP in 2014. And in 2016, Trump won over 67 percent of the vote in West Virginia. Jim Justice was just following his state’s lead—and rather cynically, at that.

Democrats need to look at West Virginia not as a glass that’s 67 percent empty for them, but one that’s 33 percent full. OK, number-wise, that sounds awful. Put in terms of the overarching concept, West Virginia shows that big changes do happen. And what flipped once can flip again. If Republicans had been complacent when they were down in West Virginia, they wouldn’t have it today. If Democrats become complacent now that we’ve lost it, we’ll never get it back.

And there’s a lot that we need to get back. With the Justice flip, Republicans now occupy 34 governorships—the most ever. They control both the governorship and the legislature in 26 states, as opposed to only 6 states where Democrats control both the executive and legislative branches. So we need to embrace Change if for no other reason than that the status quo is completely unacceptable.

Democrats need to focus on the big picture—and that big picture is made up of ALL the little pictures, from local races to state houses. And it includes the big midterm elections of 2018, but also the myriad of scattered races taking place in 2017.

And those have begun promisingly. In May, Democrats won Republican-held seats in New York and New Hampshire, and two in deep-red Oklahoma in July. These were all districts that went strongly for Trump in 2016.

And then there were the much-hyped House races in Kansas, Montana, and Georgia, where Democratic efforts fell just short. Disappointed party members are tired of being told that the results, though short of victory, are encouraging. But the reason they hear that so much is that it’s true. And the fact that those seats were well-contested is secondary to the fact that they were vigorously contested. We need to compete with that kind of vigor everywhere. And to do that, we need to do three things.

First, we have to attract quality candidates to run in races in every corner of the country. The news on this front is outstanding. A Brookings Institution study indicates that Democrats are lining up to run in record-breaking numbers. In the GOP wave election of 2010, as of a year before the election, Republicans had 50 legitimate challengers to Democratic incumbents for House seats. Already this year, Democrats have over 100 to challenge for currently held GOP seats. And those candidates are raising money at a much more impressive clip than the Republicans did back before their big 2010 win.

Secondly, we have to devote party resources to those candidates. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and Deputy Chair Keith Ellison have increased the DNC’s monthly contributions to each state Democratic Party to $10,000—up from $7,500 before July. And they’re supporting the candidates directly. In the Iowa 82nd District race in early August, the DNC provided get-out-the-vote phone banks for Phil Miller’s campaign. And the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee put in $50,000 and the expertise of their regional political director.

Third, we need to really heal—not just paper over—the divisions left over from the 2016 campaign. That’s why we’ve instituted the Unity Reform Commission to make sure that we move forward in a united front. The Democratic Party desperately needs new voices and fresh blood, and part of the Unity Reform Commission’s work is to make sure those are welcome. Change is an internal process as well!

2017 will see gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, both of which look promising for Democrats. But we need to be working and encouraging people everywhere—reclaiming lost blue states, and laying the groundwork to flip red states. Change will happen, whether we’re ready for it or not. But if we are ready for it, we’ll be in a position to take advantage of the opportunities that change brings.

Change is our best hope.

Donna Brazile (@DonnaBrazile) served as chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2016-17. She is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and author of the forthcoming book “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.”

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