Once a force to be reckoned with, now out of power for nearly a decade. Time to fight back!
For the rest of 2017, and up until 2018, we need to compete everywhere, and not be shy about going into hostile territory. As we saw this week, we can win in Republican areas, and no race is one that should be written off. The Alabama Senate special election is HUGE! The 2018 map for Democrats is brutal with so many seats we need to defend. Anthony Kennedy’s upcoming retirement is looming. We can’t let an opportunity to compete for a seat in the body that will confirm his replacement slip away.
Nobody expects the Democratic candidate to even compete in this race, yet by December, we could be looking at a “perfect” set of conditions for victory. Consider that Republicans could end up with a pretty weak candidate. Currently, they could be on track to nominate Roy Moore. This guy is a lightning rod, and we would have plenty of material to go on the attack with. The incumbent Luther Strange was appointed by now disgraced former governor Robert Bentley, and wouldn’t be top notch either should he win the primary.
In addition, Donald Trump continues to sport some terrible approval ratings. They are probably holding up in Alabama right now; however, things with Russia, healthcare, and everything else seem to be getting worse for him and not better. If he can’t turn things around by the end of this year, he could be in “George W. Bush circa 2009” territory. As of now, Republican candidates in the primary are falling over themselves to be the best Trump loyalist. If Trump’s approval slips even a bit in the state, that candidate could be vulnerable.
So how do we win in such a hostile environment? Thus far we have been competing in these big congressional special elections and coming up short. However, not all is lost, because our candidates are still doing much better than expected when compared to 2016. We currently have two different “models” for a Democratic campaign in Red Territory that we can look at when coming up with our strategy for the Alabama Senate special.
I’ll call one the “Ossoff Model”, which we saw in the GA-06 near victory. Of the two approaches, I think this is the weaker one for reasons I’ll get into later. Ossoff’s campaign was heavily focused on appealing to upscale educated white voters in the suburbs who may have reluctantly supported Trump. There is some potential here in that Georgia was one of the few states in the south where Trump underperformed Romney. If you dive into county results, you can also see that in 2016 Democrats were able to flip three suburban counties in the Atlanta Metro area (Cobb, Gwinnett, and Henry). Some of these voters are “flippable” depending on the circumstances, however, so far there have not been enough of them to win statewide. Ossoff also proved that 2016 wasn’t a fluke, and that from now on GA-06 needs to be considered a swing district. If we ran a campaign like his in Alabama, it would probably go absolutely nowhere.
On the same night we lost in Georgia, we also narrowly lost another race in South Carolina’s Fifth District. I believe this race has much more in common with the Alabama Senate, and if we want to have a chance at victory we need to follow the “Parnell Model” for competing in a Rural district.
Before we go any further, we need to determine what a winning map for a Democrat in Alabama actually looks like. We have to go back to 2008 to get one, but there is a narrow path for Democratic victory in the state. For comparison, we will first look at a map of Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
2016 Presidential Election in Alabama*
Lots and lots of red here, except for Jefferson county, which contains Birmingham, and the sparsely populated “black belt” that runs through the middle of the state. Trump was also able to carry Mobile, Tuscaloosa, and Madison, which contain the cities of Mobile, Tuscaloosa, and Huntsville, respectively.
So where are the areas we can go after? Let’s look at the last Democrat to win statewide office in Alabama. This was a race for President of the Alabama Public Service Commission in 2008 and pitted former Democratic Governor Lucy Baxleyversus Twinkle Andress Canavaugh. Baxley was able to narrowly defeat her Republican opponent. If we are going to win in December, we need to make it close, like Baxley was able to do.
2008 Public Service Commission President’s Election
When comparing the two maps, a few things should stick out:
- Every pink county on Trump’s map, except for Lee county on the eastern border with Georgia, was Blue in 2008. Especially significant is that Mobile (bottle left), Tuscaloosa (Big county in the west, very light blue in 2008 map), and Madison (top, second from the right) are blue.
- A few of the dark red counties in the north were blue in 2008.
- The deep red “suburban” counties around Mobile and Birmingham are virtually unchanged.
- The rural counties that are deep red in 2016 are a lighter shade of red in 2008.
How was Baxley able to do it? Candidate advantage was one reason. At the time, she was a fairly popular former Lieutenant Governor and would have been very familiar to the voters. The other reason, was probably Barack Obama. It’s no secret that his candidacy inspired turnout among African Americans, and that turnout edge with African Americans was just enough to push Baxley over the finish line. The president probably had a negative effect four years later, when Baxley lost the rematch to Canavaugh, but this was a result of rural whites abandoning the Democratic party as a whole over their distaste for the president.
Can we get these voters back? If Obama’s unpopularity in the state contributed to Baxley’s loss in the 2012 rematch, perhaps there is an opening for team blue if the unpopular incumbent in the White House is Donald Trump instead.
Either way, we have to try. Looking at the maps, it’s hard to argue that there is any other way to achieve victory without doing so. I mentioned Jon Ossoff’s campaign as and example of what NOT to do in Alabama, and as evidence, I would direct you to Jefferson county, the blue island in the middle of the Trump map. Notice how it is surrounded by a deep red ring in both 2008 and 2016. These “suburban” areas are not like the Atlanta suburbs, and do not contain any sort of hidden Democratic opportunity. They are red through and through.
If there are “swing voters” in Alabama, they will be in the rural areas, and the midsize cities of Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, and Mobile. If we emulate the strategy from the South Carolina house race last month, it gives us a chance. Here are a few of my ideas for how we can do that.
Parnell was able to compete in his rural district despite flying under the radar. The national party, DNC, Hollywood celebrities, and the rest of the usual suspects didn’t pay the district much attention. This was a good thing! Don’t look now, but Nancy Pelosi’s approval rating is worse than Donald Trump’s. If we want to connect with rural voters, we must not attach the candidate to the “Pelosi/Obama/Clinton Brand”. If I were the Democratic candidate who wins the primary in August, I would immediately post a video to my campaign website that would say something along the lines of:
“I’m honored to be the Democratic Party candidate for senate in the great state of Alabama. At this time in our nation’s history, our people are involved politically like never before, all over the country. For this reason, I humbly ask that if you are watching this video, or visiting this website, from New York, San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles, or anywhere that isn’t here in Alabama, that you NOT contribute financially to this campaign. Below are several worthy causes that you can donate your hard-earned dollars to (provide some links to a local Alabama charity of something). Your voice is still extremely important, but this race is to elect a Senator from Alabama, to represent the state of Alabama. Please continue to contact your own representatives; if you don’t know how to do so, you will find a link below instructing you how. We have seen through the leadership of former Republican governor Robert Bentley, how disastrous one-party rule can be in our state. Let’s not let that happen in Washington D.C. as well. Donald Trump and the Republican congress don’t have the right ideas for addressing our nations challenges, but I do. I look forward to debating these issues with my opponent in the weeks and months to come.”
Boom. This immediately distances the candidate from the Republican attack line of “money from George Soros” and “Nancy Pelosi’s Personal Pick.” Even if the money does come, at least he/she can say they didn’t want it. It would also attach the Republican candidate to an unpopular former governor, and a potentially hugely unpopular president. With this framing, our candidate can remain independent. If the election turns into “Trump vs Pelosi” we’re dead.
Next up, how do we motivate the base while keeping Republicans asleep?
This was Jon Ossoff’s problem. Give credit where it is due, Republicans pay attention! Many are like their president and watch a lot of cable news. When all those polls hyping Ossoff would come out again and again, this only served to get Republicans motivated since they knew their vote was really needed to win. In South Carolina, the race that was “in the bag”, the opposite happened since I’m sure more than a few Republicans figured they didn’t need to make the trip for their guy to win.
First off, I’d focus heavily on areas that appeal to the Democratic base in Alabama. If I’m Doug Jones, I’m talking a whole lot about fighting the KKK. Minimum wage is a big issue in a state where a large percent of the population is struggling. Healthcare is big, especially in the black belt where citizens are most likely to be left behind. Medicaid is big everywhere. Our message needs to be bold, DEMOCRATIC, and focus on how we are going to help improve lives.
Second, any good polling news doesn’t need to be shared or promoted heavily with the media. Let’s not kid ourselves. They desperately want Democrats to have a “Scott Brown” moment this year. This isn’t because of a “liberal media bias” thing, just the fact that it would be great for ratings. Any poll that comes out showing the Democrat even competitive in Alabama will be national news in minutes. If it’s my own internal, I quietly pat myself on the back and keep grinding. If it’s a public poll, I remind the media and voters that the polls “incorrectly” predicted Hillary Clinton’s victory, and that as far as I’m concerned, I’m still the underdog. Yes, I know the polls weren’t that wrong in 2016. However, the people we need to flip in Alabama distrust polls and the media, and if it seems for one second that our candidate is “in bed” with the media, we’re dead.
Finally, social issues need to come second to economic issues. I’m not saying our candidate needs to embrace Republican positions on abortion, civil rights, or anything like that, just that the central message needs to be how they will improve the lives of rural people in Alabama. It an uncomfortable truth that rural, conservative whites aren’t going to go vote out of a burning desire to stop climate change, or expand gay rights. We need to get them to come to us for the parts of our platform they do agree with. I’m not so great at explaining this part, so for more detail, check out Chris Arnade on twitter.
These are just a few ideas for anyone on this campaign, or anyone out there working a similar rural area, to consider. Remember, nowhere in this post have I said that we need to change our issues. I’m not Mark Penn. Voters like our ideas, it’s the media and “Elites” that they don’t like. If we can brand our candidate as an “Alabama Democrat” and not allow Republicans to paint him/her as a “San Francisco Liberal Elitist” we have a chance of having our message heard.
Thanks for reading.
*Thank you to Wikipedia user Ali Zifan for creating this map!
