The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) is haunted by their premature endorsements across the country, and even ultra left-wing Salon has called out the DSCC for their inability to keep their campaigns under control. In a scathing article, Salon called the group of DSCC-backed candidates a "motley crew." It didn’t stop there, though. They reported on the long-term consequences of the DSCC’s series of irrational endorsements:
The common thread throughout all these races is not only the inward-looking arrogance of decision-making without public input, but also the lack of any sort of long-term vision guiding party leadership. Even if their anointed candidates all won, it’s extremely dubious they would advance the party’s fortunes in the long run—much less the people they are supposed to serve.
The DSCC is embattled in primaries where state Democrats are rejecting the candidates the DSCC has thrust upon them, forcing Salon to call the DSCC "weak" and "ineffectual." The best example of these untested or already-failed candidates lie in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
Ohio
The Ohio primary is a tale of a 75-year-old candidate who lost a re-election after losing 350,000 jobs in the state of Ohio as governor. "Retread Ted" Strickland has already been ousted once, but now, he’s back for more. Salon explained everything that’s wrong with Strickland’s "backwards" campaign.
Strickland received an early endorsement from Washington Democrats much to local Democrats’ dismay. To make matters worse, Strickland refused to debate, causing newspaper after newspaper after newspaper to endorse Sittenfeld over Strickland. On top of losing endorsements, he has also already ran out of money trying to win his primary election. Heading into the general election, Strickland is easily lagging far behind in this Senate race.
Pennsylvania
Things aren’t going much better in Pennsylvania. Not only did Salon call Katie McGinty the "weakest" candidate, but they highlighted her serious inability to win:
The weakest, Kathleen McGinty, in next-door Pennsylvania, has never won a campaign before. She only ran once, coming in fourth in the 2014 Democratic primary for Pennsylvania governor, with 7.7% of the vote.
McGinty is facing the same woes headed into this election, trailing already in the primary polls. Additionally, McGinty’s past – ridden with turns around the revolving door – really makes you wonder why the DSCC even decided to get involved in the three-ring circus called the Democratic Pennsylvania Senate primary.
Florida
Patrick Murphy leads a privileged life, and now he’s running for Senate against someone who’s earned the endorsement of Progressive Democrats of America, Alan Grayson. Now, Murphy is trying his best to dart to the left on multiple issues.
But the establishment pick, Patrick Murphy, 32, is a walking caricature of what’s wrong with the establishment, including attacks on the party from the right. First off, he was a lifelong Republican (donating $2,300 to Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign) until just four months before first declaring his candidacy running for Congress as a Democrat. He has won just two house elections—the first a squeaker, the second by comfortable margin, thanks in part to spending over $5.3 million, the most of any Democrat seeking re-election.
Patrick Murphy is hoping he can buy a Senate election, which he has no business being in in the first place. Murphy is yet another candidate being thrust upon voters, splintering the party in two.
The DSCC has a slew of endorsed candidates who are either not ready for prime time or who have made it to the big stage, only to be largely rejected by their voters after letting them down in office. These low-tier candidates are going to be limping across the finish line come November.