I’m a little bit swamped with work at the moment, so this is just going to be a brief post. I noticed that the Democrats had a very good result in downstate Illinois municipal elections earlier this month, and I was very curious about how they pulled it off because my preoccupation right now is with figuring out how to undo the damage that was done to the Democratic Party in rural areas over the last election cycle. Unfortunately, the main reporting I found on these elections, in the Huffington Post, doesn’t offer a satisfactory answer.
But, first, the good news:
In a spate of local elections last week in Illinois, Democrats picked up seats in places they’ve never won before.
The city of Kankakee elected its first African-American, Democratic mayor. West Deerfield Township will be led entirely by Democrats for the first time. Elgin Township voted for “a complete changeover,” flipping to an all-Democratic board. Normal Township elected Democratic supervisors and trustees to run its board ― the first time in more than 100 years that a single Democrat has held a seat.
“We had a pretty good day,” said Dan Kovats, executive director of the Illinois Democratic County Chairmen’s Association. “We won in areas we normally would win, but we also won in areas Republicans never expected us to be competitive in. They were caught flat-footed.”
Now, many of these successful politicians attended a candidate boot camp organized by Rep. Cheri Bustos, so some of the explanation may be that they benefited greatly from what they were taught. What I don’t know is if they had any shared message. The article explains why some of the candidates ran, but not really why they won. Chemberly Cummings seemed to think her success was related largely to flaws with her opponent and (maybe) her opponent’s party: “I also think … when you have the representative of a party who is negative, I think you’ll start to see some things change. Nobody wants to be associated with something negative. They want to be associated with the positive.”
I’d like to think there was more to it than that people responded to some kind of generic comparative positivity. But, you know, some of these races for things like town clerk that don’t necessarily lend themselves to broad party messages.
Still, these folks had success where failure has been the recent norm. They may not have discovered the recipe for the secret sauce but they must have more to tell than this.
I live in Joe Barton’s district in Texas, within walking distance of Marc Veasey (D)’s district and easy cycling distance to Kay Granger (R)’s. I’ve been involved in the Texas Democratic Party since 1984. What I see is that Dem involvement at the county/local level has completely stopped in most of the state.
We need locals in every district — respected ones — who can drive wedges between Republican incumbents and the national GOP (and, for the moment at least, Trump). This is how they ended Democratic hegemony here, albeit with a heavy dose of racism. To have your photo on TV next to Tip O’Neill’s was once certain death here. We can now return the favor, but we have to start at the bottom and work upward. The national party needs a 50 state strategy. The Texas Democratic Party needs a 254 county one. We just can’t expect to flip the entire ballot at once. If Democrats become competitive again in rural counties*, that will be the start of something big.
*The Texas House of Representatives is run by a coalition of rural Republicans and Democrats, over a minority of suburban tea party nihilists and theocrats. The ground is ripe to start flipping some moderates if we can just make it safe for them to do it.
Good luck. I think you have two problems. First, increase turnout. How are you going to get people out to vote. I suspect there are a large number of folks who don’t bother to vote. This could be a long term project. And related to that how do you get jobs in rural counties? Or give people a reason to vote?
what do you think of Beto O’Rourke running for Senate? I watched some of the bipartisan road trip, impressed with both Beto O’Rourke and Will Hurd (who said he opposes the wall).
I believe you’re 100% correct. That doesn’t mean Democrats should never evaluate where funds can best or most efficiently spent. But it does mean we should not give up anywhere. We need to keep our eye on both the short and long term too. A close loss may open people to the possibility of voting Democratic. When someone has pulled that little plastic lever once, they may be more open to doing it again.
Or they may decide it’s no use. In a very red district, if a really odious Republican can’t be defeated, why bother?
“… some of the explanation may be that they benefited greatly from what they were taught.”
Nah, I think nearly ALL of the explanation is from what they were taught.
We live, right or wrong, in a country of political neophytes. The current crop of winning neophytes are benefitting from racism, dog whistles, fear and gerrymandering. Simply being told “don’t make jokes on the stump, not everyone’s humor is yours” is enough to not lose 250 votes in a county election.
Common sense politicking. Don’t leave home without it.
as someone who lives here most of these are suburban areas, wealthy ones but still suburban of Chicago. Deerfield is a northern suburb, Elgin is a western suburb and Kankakee is a southern suburb.
Mostly I think we just did a better job at actually fielding candidates. These locations have been trending Democratic for a while but at the local level there are a ton of times we don’t field any candidates which makes it difficult to win.
I haven’t heard if we did actually better downstate but I think that would of popped in local news and didn’t.
Naperville which is also a wealthier suburban elected Democrats for the first time as well.
I’m curious to see if there were significant differences in turnout from last Nov.
This. I’m in Des Plaines and on initial reading I was like “Wow, Carbondale went Democratic?” (It’s near the borders of Kentucky and Missouri.) But as noted, those are mostly collar cities of Chicago. IL is long noted for centrist Repubs in executive positions, but many Dems may have just decided to “make it a horse race.” Still good to see and “Good on ya!” Rep. Bustos. I vaguely remember reading about the training. Like they say for the Lotto: you can’t win if you don’t play!
Naperville! Really…
The next step is to take Bustos’s “Build The Bridge” national.
I think “90% of life is just showing up” applies to politics as well.
There’s definitely value to fighting and losing in a way that prepares you to win in the future, “slow boring of hard boards” etc. I think it’s really important for Democrats to support lefties in red states even when they have no hope of winning, because those are great people fighting the good fight where it’s tough. We need to show that we care about them, and even if we can’t win in Kansas or whatever, the lefties there give money and support to candidates all over the country. Fighting and losing is discouraging in the short run but in the long run it’s better than not fighting at all. Fighting and losing is how you build up your team, and it’s how ideological shifts happen.
What you really want is your beliefs to be dominant, so that even when you’re out of power the other side is implementing your agenda. When you show up and fight your ideas and values have a chance to spread. When you quit before you start you’ll never get anywhere.
I agree. The challenge is it isn’t a binary decision. Intelligent choice must be made about how to allocate resources. At the same time, we need to invest everywhere. The 50-State-Strategy is so often framed in a “yes/no” way. The reality is so much more complex.
I saw this on the ground in the contrasts between the Obama and Clinton campaigns. Obama was not religious in his affinity for spreading resources around but that’s what his campaign did. With so much wisdom about how to use funds to build ground-roots infrastructure.
Clinton by contrast cut off resources to places where she thought she was going to win or lose for sure. That hurt enthusiasm in ways her campaign could not understand. A national movement requires national engagement.
Regarding Elgin, it’s your “demographics are destiny”. i.e. largely non-white
Deerfield is a relatively affluent suburb of Chicago.
Elgin used to be a prosperous small city completely separated from Chicago by farmland. No longer. It is now part of the metro area. It lost the Elgin Watch factory many years ago and has become an impoverished town with a large Hispanic population (44%).
Normal Township is part of McLean County. This would be considered “down state,” but certainly isn’t rural. From Wikipedia: “Bloomington is a city in Illinois, United States and the county seat of McLean County. It is adjacent to Normal, and is the more populous of the two principal municipalities of the Bloomington-Normal metropolitan area.
The 2010 census showed the city had a population of 76,610,[1] making it the 12th most populated city in Illinois, and the fifth-most populous city in the state outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area.[2] Combined with Normal, the twin cities have a population of roughly 130,000.”
Do ISU students get to vote in Normal? Do they bother with local elections?
I have no idea. I haven’t lived in Illinois for 60 years! My main point was that the towns/small cities cited were certainly not rural, as I would define rural. Having said that, if they moved from red to blue, that’s a great story and hopefully a good sign.
My grandson could vote in DeKalb IL when he lived there so I think the answer to my question is “yes”, reinforcing your point that these areas are not purely rural.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/deerfield/news/ct-dfr-west-deerfield-township-race-tl-0202-201
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So there already were Democrats in office in that township. It’s not like it was pure red and turned blue.
My guess is that these are neoliberal Democrats, indistinguishable from Republicans except they are not religious bigots.
Minor quibble — the damage has been done over forty years, since the presidency of Jimmy Carter. That’s when the Democratic Leadership Council began forming. There has been a purposeful undermining of the New Deal among people who have helped each other gain control of the Democratic Party. There are reasons why the DNC, DCCC, and DSCC all refuse to help any candidate with progressive or liberal credentials. Maybe Tom Perez, who had an impressive liberal record as Secretary of Labor, will change that, but I’m not encouraged by his actions so far. This local success does make me hopeful. Change is going to have to come from the bottom.