as you can read in a Politico story posted this morning titled Obama endorses all the way down ballot with a subtitled of “After watching the GOP make large gains in statehouses during his presidency, Obama is making a last-gasp attempt to build his party from the bottom up.
The story begins like this:
President Barack Obama will make a late splash into races for state senate and assembly over the next week, endorsing roughly 150 candidates across 20 states.
He’ll also back a candidate for North Carolina state supreme court.
The endorsements—which will come along with a variety of robocalls, social media, mailers, photos of Obama with the candidates taken as he’s been traveling to campaign in recent weeks, and even a few radio ads—are Obama’s biggest investment in state races ever by far, and come as he gears up to make redistricting reform at the state level the political priority of his post-presidency.
It notes that such an engagement all the way down the ballot is unprecedented for a President. The effort began with 13 races in Florida, but will extend to races in states that are totally not competitive for the Presidential race.
Part of the idea is to start to build a wall against losses in the offyear elections of 2018, and another part is to make use of the President’s increasing approval ratings, ranging from 53- to 57% in some recent polls.
The focus on non-federal races is a recognition of how much policy is being shaped within the states, on issues from abortion to voting procedures to environmental issues and more.
The story notes that this is something new for Obama, compared to during the previous 3 federal election cycles during his presidency.
Candidates were invited to apply for such support, and went through a serious vetting process, so that the President could avoid being entangled with anyone problematic.
This may seem as if this effort is beginning far too late in the process, but there is an explanation within the article:
“In a lot of these super down ballot races, focus often doesn’t shift down the ballot until very late in the cycle,” said Carolyn Fiddler, the communications director for the DLCC, who pointed out that many of these races will be decided by fewer than 500 votes. “Given where this campaign has gone from the national level on down, this is going to be a really good way to push
This is even stronger evidence that Democrats across the board are seeing the possibilities of turning this into a wave election, even beyond the Federal races.