Don’t falter Democrats. This could be the last chance.
by digby
As we start to shift into election season (ohmygod) it’s going to be important to keep in mind that for all of our excitement over the predicted tsunami, Democrats can still blow this.
When Republicans regained control of the House in 2010, they were propelled by a big swing toward the party among women. Now, signs are emerging Republicans could be handicapped in 2018 by women shifting away from the GOP.
In particular, women with a four-year college degree have moved toward favoring Democratic control of Congress, recent polling shows, helping to account for a substantial Democratic lead in multiple surveys on the question of which party Americans want to see leading Congress after the midterm elections.
The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows Democrats with a 20-point edge among women on control of Congress. That lead is larger than the 12-point Democratic edge among women during the last midterms, in 2014.
The Democratic advantage is even bigger among women with college degrees. These women would rather see Democrats than Republicans lead Congress by 32 percentage points, 62% to 30%, far larger than the party’s edge among these women in the past two midterm years, the latest Journal/NBC News survey found.
Asked which party should control Congress, women with a four-year college degree have shifted toward favoring Democratic leadership more forcefully than have other voter groups.
With the two parties now at about parity among men, the Democrats’ big advantage among college-educated women helps account for the party’s 11-point lead among Americans overall in the last Journal/NBC News survey, conducted Dec. 13-15.
Republican leaders in Congress have said that while next year’s elections could be challenging, they believe the strong economy and the just-enacted tax bill will win over voters. The party will “do bold things that work and prove our principles in practice,’’ House Speaker Paul Ryan said recently.
Journal/NBC News polling has found that women without college degrees also have moved toward favoring Democratic control of Congress in recent midterm elections, as have men with and without degrees. In December’s survey, men without degrees were the most open to GOP control, with 44% favoring Republicans and the same share backing Democratic leadership.
But women with college degrees have moved most dramatically over time. As a group, they hit two weak spots for the GOP: The party traditionally trails among women, and, more recently, it has slid in popularity among college graduates overall.
Stephanie Martin, a 44-year-old mother in Chapel Hill, N.C., said she had long considered herself a Republican and fiscal conservative, though she didn’t vote for Donald Trump last year. Now, she wants Democrats to take control of Congress. Among the reasons, she said, was the GOP’s support for former Judge Roy Moore in Alabama’s Senate election this month, after he was accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls. Mr. Moore denied the accusations.
“I don’t know where the party is going to from here, but they are going to have to do a lot to get me back,” said Ms. Martin, a former corporate executive who holds a master’s degree.
Opinions like those could become a point of concern for the party. College-educated women make up about 15% of the voting-age population, but they account for a larger share in 39 of the 60 or so House districts likely to have the most competitive races next year. In some, they account for as much as 28% of voting-age residents.
College educated women, and white college educated women specifically, have traditionally voted GOP. They’ve been moving toward the Democrats for a while, but now they are making the shift in large numbers. I know some of them. Trump is viscerally repulsive to most women, although he obviously feels he’s God’s great gift to the ladies.
In this #Metoo moment, one hopes that the Democratic party understands the significance of this shift and does not follow the lead of the media and treat the white working class male as the only voter that matters. I’m not sure why we seem to be obsessed with this faction but if the Democrats fail to embrace their base of people of color and this new shift of college educated women in order to prove their hardscrabble, rural, white, blue collar bonafides, it will be a huge error.
Picture this scenario. Trump is out saying that he’s going to pass a big infrastructure bill with the help of Democrats who will be grateful to work with him on something they both want. They pass a big bill and Trump gets his victory lap replete with a huge bipartisan celebration on the white house steps. The media sees this as Trump’s Big Pivot, he learned from his mistakes in the first term, he is now the big hearted populist he always said he was, his base is thrilled to see that he’s finally being celebrated as the Great President they knew he would be and they come out in droves in 2018 to thank the Republicans for their service.
Meanwhile the Democratic base, particularly the women and people of color who make up the vast majority of it, realize that the Resistance is futile and they withdraw back into private life hoping wanly that Robert Mueller may come up with something because that’s all they have — knowing that their horror at the prospect of this racist, misogynist, monster being validated over and over again is irrelevant to the Democratic party. White working class men and the women who love them are the only people who matter in this country.
Do you think it can’t happen? Oh, sure it can. If we let it.
As I have written before, the only bipartisan deals the Democrats need to make are those that are on their own terms. They don’t have to give Trump his Big Bipartisan Win in order to appeal to some white working class men who will never vote for them anyway. In fact, it will simply push them more deeply into Donald Trump’s faux populist Republican party.
Hopefully, my fears about impending capitulation to Trump are overblown. I admit that I’m probably scarred by decades of Democratic sellouts. But just in case my fears have some validity, I hope everyone will stay vigilant and let their Democratic representatives and candidates know that they expect them to hold. the. line.through 2018.
Midterms are referendums for the party in power and we must keep in mind that 90% of the base of the Democratic party is overwhelmingly hostile to Donald Trump and what he and his party represent. I’m going to be following this very closely and I promise to let you know when I see the party’s resolve slipping.
If we don’t repudiate this man and his party in 2018, I fear we might not get another chance. Yes, he is that dangerous.
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