Politics IS local….
What might work in a urban Blue State isn’t gonna play in a Red or Purple state for some Democrats…
The constant media attention for the likes Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (and some others) fronting big ticket ‘free’ programs for all that would cost taxpayers trillions to implement ARE worrying those in the House and possibly those in campaigns for the Senate and the White House….
The simple problem IS?
People may want more service for free…
But with the Republican fresh on raising peoples taxes this year?
Talk about pie-in-sky social programs WILL hurt some Democrat’s the party needs come next years election….
With the progressive squad of Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Omar and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) capturing most of the headlines, the vulnerable Democrats are left to respond in stronger and stronger terms. The four liberals have forced majority-makers like Hill to distinguish themselves with voters and donors early and often.
“You have these four members frankly that were elected from seats that are going to be Democratic no matter what and represent a very small fraction of the party as a whole,” said Hill. “And it’s like they’re the only ones that exist.”
And as the presidential election nears, Hill and her fellow at-risk Democrats will need all the attention they can get. Republicans must win 18 seats to take back the House, and they have ample targets. Republicans are setting their sights on the 31 Democratically held districts that voted for Trump in 2016, followed by another two-dozen districts like Hill’s that didn’t back Trump but have Republican DNA.
To survive, vulnerable Democrats are shrugging off their more progressive colleagues. It’s a strategy they employed last year when Republicans dropped millions on a steady stream of TV ads tying them to then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. The Pelosi-themed ads ultimately didn’t work and Democrats netted 40 seats — their largest gain since Watergate. But the ‘tweet first, explain later’ strategy, utilized by Ocasio-Cortez and friends, who wield nearly 5 million Twitter followers between them, puts Democrats like Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) in a tough spot.
“We all won in districts when we were accused of being somebody else, or something else,” said Spanberger, before reprising the viral line from one of her 2018 debates: “I am Abigail Spanberger. I’m not anybody else.”
Spanberger is among more than a dozen Democrats who represent districts Trump won by more than 6 percentage points in 2016 — the front line of the 2020 battlefield. The list includes two entrenched incumbents who have seen their districts drift toward Republicans: Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.).
But the seats most coveted by Republicans belong to newcomers like Spanberger and New York Democrat Max Rose, an Army combat veteran who won a Staten Island-based district Trump carried by nearly 10 points. At least three Republicans are already eyeing a challenge to the 32-year-old Rose….
Note…
The above Politico linked piece points to the House…But the issue IS bigger than that for Democrats….
House Democratic Speaker Pelosi is walking a tightrope to keep things together…