In the fall elections, Democrats won the headliner but lost many undercards. With sizable gains in state legislatures and U.S. Congress, Republicans are poised to control redistricting based on the 2020 Census and potentially take back the House in 2022.
And so, pointed fingers are flying — with an always hypercritical party looking for people, strategies and messages to blame.
There’s no single explanation for why an electorate that rejected Donald Trump was in many cases unwilling to give the Democrats a chance at the local level. But we’ve seen enough clues to suggest many voters reacted poorly to talk on the party’s far-left fringes, which Republicans were all too happy to amplify as they labeled their opponents cop-hating socialists.
Many Republicans throughout the country prevailed in hard-fought races by glibly and incorrectly caricaturing moderate Democrats as foes of law enforcement, a characterization made easier by the fact that some peaceful protests in major cities devolved into violence.
Back in late May, Democratic political analyst David Shor, citing research by Princeton professor Omar Wasow, pointed out on Twitter that “Post-MLK assassination race riots reduced Democratic vote share in surrounding counties by 2%, which was enough to tip the 1968 election to Nixon.”
Shor was fired from his job for stating a fact. Democrats who didn’t learn the lesson this time around will have another chance in 2022.
— New York Daily News