Yesterday in New Hampshire, the state Democratic party held a seat called to a special election:
www.wmur.com/...
Communications specialist and former political consultant Kris Schultz easily won a New Hampshire House special election in Concord Ward 9 Tuesday, defeating Republican Michael Feeley by a count of 284 to 82.
The Democratic party had held this seat, after a victory in November 56-44. In a special election, Democratic candidate Kris Schultz blew through that number at nearly 78%, outpacing Democratic registration in the district (35%) by a significant margin.
Following victories in Oklahoma and New York special election races, Democratic energy is UP in local races to change their state house while Republican energy just isn’t there.
What was the key mix? Despite appeals by commenters all over the internet to turn every race into a referendum on large national issues or to debate the issues of the national races, the Oklahoma and New Hampshire races flew under the radar for many — but focused on traditional get out the vote effort and knowing their own district.
www.washingtonpost.com/...
The races marked the first wins for the party under Anna Langthorn, who got national attention for taking over the beleaguered Oklahoma Democrats two months ago — at age 24.
“Both of the races came out of Republicans resigning after sex scandals,” said Langthorn. “They didn’t do a lot of preparation, whereas we had candidates who’d run before and were willing to run again. We had a field organizer in each race, for $2,500 per month. There were campaign PACs that spent a little money. Clearly, it was worth it.”
What we’ve seen in these races is a clear signal that all politics are local. Candidates in Oklahoma and New Hampshire were good matches for their district and they succeeded by discussing local issues while Republicans battled allegiance to national concerns.
When Democratic candidates focused on the energy generated among Democratic voters around them and focused on their local issues victories followed.
What makes this significant is that as we approach fall 2017 with state races in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as 2018 with state house races nationally, we have to be aware that voters in local races want to hear more about local issues — what can a politician actually do if elected?
In New Hampshire, the discussion was about the reauthorization of Medicaid Expansion and education. In Missouri, discussion of jobs and education filled the room. All of them local issues. And all of them relatively low money races - less than $10k in several.
When we look forward to candidates in 2017/2018, we are getting a clear message. Trump may motivate Democratic voters to be interested. But voters are now awake to the problems of their local community and are looking for someone to reach out to and discuss how to begin fixing the issues that face them.