What the hell happened to the Democrats downballot?!

[YoungDemCA]

2008 seemed so hopeful. Then 2010 came, and so much of the Democratic bench in Congress and at the state and local levels was wiped out. My question is simply, WHY?

Something went horribly, horribly wrong, and it's only gotten worse since.

[leftofcool]

1. We needed Howard Dean back

He didn't want to be a part of the new Democratic Era.

[townie]

13. I second this..

Had his finger on the pulse of the party

[liskddksil]

19. I'm sure he would of liked to have continued to be DNC Chair or appointed HHS Secretary

but unfortunately Pres. Obama felt differently.

[still_one]

26. You are right leftof cool. His 50 state strategy worked, fight for every state, and recognize some

states are more complicated nservative than others

[zipplewrath]

2. A lot of things

You won't get alot of agreement on what they are though.

One you will probably get alot of agreement on though is gerrymandering.

[FBaggins]

5. There wouldn't have been any gerrymandering between 2008 and 2010.

most line drawing occurred after the 2010 census (in time for 2012 elections)

[Hekate]

3. 1) Democrats get excited by presidential elections. Midterms are booooring. Or something...

2) Republicans SHOW UP for midterms. The GOP reliably gives them ballot issues they care about in the midterms, and they show up. You know -- God, Guns, & Gays?

Once in office, the majority party has the say on issues like redistricting, and the GOP say, "Let's gerrymander the hell out of this place!"

Rinse, repeat. As long as Democrats keep sitting on their asses during midterms, this will be the pattern.

3) Returning to point 2, The Republican Party has been playing the Long Game for two generations. Democrats -- well, I'll let you fill in the blanks from your experience here.

This is the short version, obviously.

[YoungDemCA]

4. Good points.

[NCTraveler]

7. Solid. nt.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

10. I've been one of the Democrats who hasn't always voted in midterms. Never again!

The November election (I obviously voted that time) shook the complacency out of me!

[Salviati]

27. Everyone I know votes in every election...

... but it's easier here in WA state where it's all vote by mail. As a former on again/off again voter, you may know more people like your previous self, I hope you can bring more of them around as reliable voters. Forget all of this wooing of trump voter bullshit, the biggest electoral demographic is non-voters, we should be targeting them.

[Awsi Dooger]

12. We are not a midterm party

Single women and minorities aren't motivated. Consequently the electorate is less female, more white, more conservative, and older than in presidential years.

Obviously none of that works in our favor, and there are no indications anything will change. We can have successful midterms but only when independents slant sharply our way due to either satisfaction with a Democratic administration or -- far more likely -- severe dissatisfaction with a Republican administration.

The upside in a wave midterm is never anywhere close to what the GOP enjoys. During 2006 I remember thinking Republicans would net 80 or 90 seats in an environment like that. Bush had an approval rating in the 37 range in early November 2006 when Democrats picked up 31 seats. Contrast to early November 2010, when Obama had a low but not miserable approval rating of 45 but Democrats lost 63 seats.

Again, this all goes back to the devastating bottom line of 3 self-identified conservatives for every 2 self-identified liberals nationwide. A Rachel Maddow type is never going to spotlight that category but it's the reality and it dictates margin for error and therefore outcomes. We simply can't fight in as many places. If we make a push in unfriendly territory in a favorable environment it merely drops the margin to single digits. The opposition can shove unlikely race after race over the top when they own the situational edge.

I noticed our midterm lull as far back as 1978, when I was fresh in college. There was a jackass loudmouth conservative professor who used to hang out in the student newspaper office for a half hour or so every afternoon, for some reason. He was maybe 15 years older than I was but I could battle with him talking politics and he seemed to relish it. He was convinced Republicans would dominate the '78 midterm and that Reagan would win in 1980. I thought he was nuts about Reagan's chances but I sensed he was correct about the midterm. There didn't seem to be any energy at all among Democrats that year. Hey, we finally retook the presidency in 1976 so now we can take a nap.

When I joined this site prior to the 2002 midterm there was false sense of confidence. Everybody seemed to think the revenge motive for the 2000 Gore outcome would be plenty. That ignored 9-11 and all the indications from Pew and other polling firms that certain demographics had become scared and more security conscious.

My discouragement during midterms is that 2/3 of all governorships are decided in those years. Our bench suffers.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

18. I think many people won't self-identify as liberal because it's become a "bad word"...

... thanks to corporate media.

If tested on what they believe, many people are more liberal than how they label themselves.

[Hekate]

20. Newt Gingrich wrote the alt-vocabulary list & he was media-savvy. Look to Newt & the long game. nt

[treestar]

14. +1

when do right wingers claim they have to be "inspired?" That they have to have something to vote "for?"

[Hekate]

21. Exactly my point. I get so disgusted with "our side" I could spit.

Did you see that Thom Hartmann is bitching about the Supreme Court?

[RKP5637]

6. Lazy Democrats thinking only Presidential Elections count! I've seen them, I've known them. And,

the republicans know this.

[SaschaHM]

8. The politics of healthcare, recovery and successful GOP messaging, and gerrymandering.

You could present people w/ the best healthcare system in the world, but you can't insulate it from initial uncertainty, unseen issues, and lies/negative messaging when it is rolled out. The same goes for saving the economy. It's easier to blame the folks in power for continued grievances that it is for those that screwed it up.

Democrats, unfortunately, expend much of their political capital nowadays fixing the failures of their predecessors.

[Greybnk48]

9. Worked the phones in Wisconsin 2010. "Obamacare" and

right wing propaganda. They seemed to whip people into a frenzy over the ACA. I was repeatedly screamed at over the phone about this. And brainwashing for tax cuts, (cuts that didn't go to the people wanting them).

[mythology]

11. The president's party generally loses in midterm elections

In 2010, Republicans were really fired up over the ACA. Think about Democrats in 2006.

With only two viable parties, a country that is deeply but narrowly divided and the increasing importance of targeting base turnout, there will likely be more of a swing back and forth.

[msongs]

15. because the party leadership since 2008 has not cared about local/state offices and so

many repubs run unopposed in offices at that level

[emulatorloo]

16. They voted for healthcare and to save the economy. They were voted out because of that

Koch Bros etc demonized them for those votes and launched a billion dollar lie campaign that was effective.

That's really the bottom line imho.

And also many of our Dem voters don't bother voting in midterms. While Republicans realize how important they are

[crazycatlady]

17. A lot of infighting and lack of coordination between campaigns

[moondust]

22. Ask Tim Kaine?

DNC chair at the time.

I don't recall much DNC urgency at that time despite the rise of the Tea Party. Maybe I missed it.

IMO 2010 and 2016 both had a lot to do with RW hate--racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc.

[LaydeeBug]

23. It was fucking RIGGED. THAT'S what happened. nt

[JI7]

24. they were blue dogs that lost and people bragged about not supporting them

[Starry Messenger]

25. Gerrymandering and voter suppression.

I'm going to keep telling people this until it finally fucking penetrates. More people than ever are voting for Democrats, but their votes are diluted through gerrymandering.

Voter ID laws and other forms of vote suppression are also killing us. Say it with me slowly. ONE IN FIVE BLACK PEOPLE IN FLORIDA CANNOT VOTE BECAUSE OF FELONY CONVICTIONS. Work on voter suppression and quit with the masturbatory beard-stroking think-pieces about Dems with no ideas.

[LenaBaby61]

29. "I'm going to keep telling people this until it finally fucking penetrates."

Sad to say it may NOT penetrate.

I keep seeing where many Dems are getting their hopes up super-high about voting in 2018, and in reality our voting systems are in disrepair, and growing worse for Dems. Whether it's voter purging, gerrymandering, voter crosschecking, restrictive voter ID laws, we NOW also have the ruskies interfering into the mix as well to worry about. How are we going to vote Dems into office wen our voting apparatus is vulnerable, hackable and when gerrymandering, voter-purging and voter crosschecking and voter ID is killing us by removing us from voter rolls o taking away our votes? thuglicans run every part of government and vote tally all across this country. Do you think they'll make it easier for Dems to vote them out of office especially when they can increase their #'s in the House/Senate and be closer than EVER to monkeying around with the Constitution? thuglicans have it too good--they control everything, meanwhile Dems risk becoming a permanent minority party if our votes don't count or we can't vote.

[karadax]

28. Organizing for Action (America) damaged the DNC. To such a degree that

State entities were left to fend for themselves. There were no resources.

Actually, Hillary Clinton makes a good -- and awkward -- point--CNN

But when it comes to Clinton's touchy accusation that former President Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee were less than helpful, the awkward but important truth is that Clinton is right.
For years, local Democratic groups have complained that Obama poured resources into a political organization, Obama for America (later renamed Organizing for Action) at the expense of building the party. The evidence suggests that warnings from the grassroots were ignored -- and came back to haunt and bedevil the party in 2016.
"[With] all due respect to President Obama, OFA was created as a shadow party because Obama operatives had no faith in state parties," Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb told Politico earlier this year. "OFA had no faith or confidence in the state parties so they created a whole separate organization, they took money away and centralized it in D.C. They gave us a great president for eight years, but we lost everywhere else."

In the end we shot ourselves in the foot because we stopped paying attention to what was happening at the top of the party. The President circumvented the DNC and it bit us in the ass. Hard.