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The
longstanding maxim, “Democrats
fall in love, Republicans fall in line”
is operating at peak efficiency. Democrats of color fell hard for
the Obama-Biden ticket in 2008 and 2012 and for the Biden-Harris
ticket in 2020, propelling them to victory. Then, after their
historic achievement in 2008, they did not turn out for the 2010
midterm election, where the Republicans wiped out Democrats in the
House and gained seven Senate seats. There appeared to be little
White House effort to galvanize down-ballot Democratic races.
The
Democratic voting base failed to take back the House in 2014 and also
lost the Senate to Republicans, who continued to stay in line. As a
result, the Obama-Biden administration was in lame-duck status during
the last six years of its two terms, enabling the Republicans to deny
Obama the ability to fill an open seat on the Supreme Court in 2016.
That
same Democratic approach appears to be taking hold as the
Biden-Harris administration positions itself for the 2022 midterms,
hoping to maintain its House and Senate majorities. In addition,
progressive Democrats do not seem to understand that the instability
of their borderline majorities in both chambers do not provide them
the latitude to push a far-left agenda and that they need to rein in
some of their leftist political impulses to hold their members
together.
African
American, Asian and Pacific Islander, Indigenous, and Latinx
voters—the New American Majority of the Democratic voting
base--provided the decisive margins for Democratic victories in
Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada in the 2020 U.S. Senate and presidential
elections. The 2022 midterm elections will require that Democrats
scale up quickly in their outreach and resource allocations to these
ethnic minority constituencies.
Currently,
only Georgia has such a political organization in place. And Sen.
Raphael Warnock (D-GA), who stands for reelection in 2022, took part
in the Georgia organizing effort long before he became a Senate
candidate. The White males who spearhead the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic Senate
Campaign Committee (DSCC) are both ill-equipped to lead these efforts
successfully in the battleground states on the midterm ballots.
To
address this problem, three Democratic Senators, Cory Booker (NJ and
Black), Mazie Hirono (HI and AAPI), and Alex Padilla (CA and Latinx)
will co-chair the Majority Rising Leadership Council at the DSCC to
ensure that Democratic “…
campaigns have the expertise and resources they need to engage the
communities that power our victories.” This
group may be too late to have a major electoral impact.
As
structured, this diversity initiative does not have control over
candidate selection and the distribution of financial resources to
minority consultants and local get-out-the-vote (GOTV) field
operators in the battleground states. Booker, Hirono, and Padilla
are at risk of being used as minority fronts for a White-controlled
political apparatus.
This
is further highlighted in the examination of crucial races which may
determine whether the Democrats keep their majority.
The
open U.S. Senate seats in North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania (all
held by Republicans) provide opportunities for Democratic pickups to
sustain and/or expand their political advantage.
Two
African American females are running for the North Carolina U.S
Senate seat: former State Senator Erica Smith, who was blown out in a
2020 Democratic primary run by a White former State Senator, Cal
Cunningham, and former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice,
Cheri Beasley, who narrowly lost a 2020 reelection bid (by 401 votes)
against Associate Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby, a right-wing
Republican who ran a campaign with direct appeals to racism. White
state Sen. Jeff Jackson, who has already raised more than $1.3
million, is considered the frontrunner, joined by other lesser
candidates.
Neither
Smith nor Berry can win the Democratic primary if both remain in the
race! There are simply not enough votes to give either of them a
political triumph. Even if they cut a deal, it will still be a tough
race. No Black candidate has ever prevailed in a statewide primary
when running against a fellow African American in a field with
Whites.
Naively,
both females have reached out to the 2020 Democratic Senate
candidate, state Sen. Cal Cunningham, who led the incumbent
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis in the polls throughout the race until
his involvement in an ongoing extra-marital affair came to light
during the final months of the race causing his defeat in a Bible
belt state.
Beasley
has a shot at the nomination because the state and National
Democratic leaders recognize that she could energize turn out of
North Carolina’s growing New American Majority of Democratic
voters who could impact Democratic pickups in the state legislature
and the Congressional delegation.
The
concern is whether Beasley is tough enough to overcome the racist
onslaught sure to come from either of the Trump-aligned candidates
she will face. She was a deer in the political headlights in the
last weeks of her 2020 race and failed to rally her base to get her
across the finish line. Have her political instincts improved since
that time?
In
Ohio, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH 13th
District), after having performed poorly as a 2020 candidate for the
Democratic presidential nomination, is vying for the open Ohio Senate
seat in 2022. Presently, he has little chance of winning as he has
not formed the coalitions needed to help him succeed in a
Republican-controlled state.
Finally,
the Democratic Lt. Governor of Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, who ran
for the Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2016, has dwarfed his
competition’s fundraising, mostly from small donors, and is
leading the field so far. However, Republicans are running scorched
earth ads against him.
Arizona's
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly and Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto are
running for reelection and are prime Republican targets. But both
should cruise to victory if the new voter suppression laws do not
waylay New American Majority voters in their respective states who
elected them the last time they ran.
The
House races are more problematic as the Republican-controlled state
legislatures have begun processes to redraw district lines to
disadvantage Democrats. Now is the time for Democratic leaders and
voters to fall in line as their Republican opponents have done all
along.
Nonetheless,
a political lottery ticket that could boost Democrats is the
implosion of the Republican alliance in the aftermath of the purge of
Rep. Elizabeth Cheney from her leadership post. Enough women and
Independents could defect to Democrats to push them over the top in
Congressional contests as they did in 2020. In the meantime,
Democrats need to press the political pedal to the metal via an
aggressive focus on their diverse voter base.
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