ICYMI: Senate Is Ground Zero For Democrats’ Identity Crisis

National Journal

By Josh Kraushaar

September 9, 2015

http://bit.ly/1LZeZl3

If Hol­ly­wood wanted to pro­duce a su­per­hero movie about an ec­lect­ic bunch of Demo­crat­ic Sen­ate un­der­dogs look­ing to take on their party’s es­tab­lish­ment, they wouldn’t be able to script a more un­usu­al cast of char­ac­ters than the ones ac­tu­ally run­ning: There’s a three-star ad­mir­al who has no in­terest in tak­ing or­ders from party lead­ers. There’s the wealthy left-wing mil­lion­aire whose main cam­paign “tal­ent” is to pul­ver­ize his op­pos­i­tion, at least rhet­or­ic­ally. There’s a boy­ish 30-year-old Cin­cin­nati city coun­cil­man who’s look­ing to play Dav­id to a former Ohio gov­ernor’s Go­liath. And there are two highly ac­com­plished Afric­an-Amer­ic­an wo­men vy­ing to make his­tory in the Sen­ate—but both try­ing to do it against can­did­ates who en­joy the back­ing of the Demo­crat­ic es­tab­lish­ment.

None of these can­did­ates are fa­vor­ites to win their party’s primar­ies, run­ning against bet­ter-fun­ded, bet­ter-or­gan­ized Demo­crat­ic op­pos­i­tion. But the mere fact that they’re not be­ing cowed by party lead­ers to step aside for the great­er good is a re­flec­tion of the rising tide of pro­gress­ive, anti­es­tab­lish­ment angst tak­ing place with­in the Demo­crat­ic Party. Just as the once-seem­ingly un­beat­able Hil­lary Clin­ton is look­ing more vul­ner­able than ever in the pres­id­en­tial cam­paign, some of the party’s brand-name Sen­ate front-run­ners can’t de­pend on big-name en­dorse­ments trans­lat­ing in­to pub­lic sup­port.

The spate of cred­ible Demo­crat­ic primary chal­lengers cre­at­ing head­aches is un­usu­al for the party, at least in re­cent his­tory. Over the past dec­ade, only one elec­tion year (2010) fea­tured a string of com­pet­it­ive Demo­crat­ic Sen­ate primar­ies in battle­ground states. More of­ten than not, the party’s con­gres­sion­al lead­ers have been suc­cess­ful in anoint­ing favored can­did­ates without much in­ter­fer­ence from the out­side. When Demo­crats have faced com­pet­it­ive Sen­ate primar­ies, they’ve usu­ally been in lib­er­al states where the gen­er­al elec­tion is a fait ac­com­pli. By con­trast, four of next year’s five biggest primar­ies are in battle­ground races where a di­vis­ive fight for the nom­in­a­tion could hurt the even­tu­al Demo­crat­ic nom­in­ee.

With the com­pel­ling pres­id­en­tial race suck­ing up all the me­dia oxy­gen lately, the battle for the Sen­ate hasn’t got­ten much at­ten­tion. But these primar­ies are worth fol­low­ing to get a meas­ure for how deep the Demo­crat­ic Party’s di­vi­sions are. In a nor­mal year, the front-run­ners would be ex­pec­ted to coast. In an­oth­er year, the no­tion of a 30-year-old polit­ic­al novice tak­ing on a brand-name politi­cian would be seen as a joke. Be­fore the rise of Don­ald Trump as a politi­cian, few would en­ter­tain the no­tion of a boor­ish bil­lion­aire beat­ing the party’s en­dorsed can­did­ate in Flor­ida. But this is not shap­ing up to be a nor­mal polit­ic­al en­vir­on­ment.

The most in­ter­est­ing test will be in Pennsylvania, a race crit­ic­al to Demo­crat­ic hopes of re­tak­ing the Sen­ate. Party lead­ers got so tired of the un­pre­dict­ab­il­ity of former Rep. Joe Ses­tak, the highest-ranked mil­it­ary of­ficer to ever serve in Con­gress, that they re­cruited Katie Mc­Ginty, the fourth-place fin­ish­er in last year’s gubernat­ori­al primary. On pa­per, Ses­tak is an ac­com­plished can­did­ate as a dec­or­ated mil­it­ary vet­er­an, former Phil­adelphia-area con­gress­man, and someone who nearly bucked the 2010 Re­pub­lic­an wave in the Key­stone State. He fits the polit­ic­al mo­ment as a polit­ic­al out­sider will­ing to buck the party es­tab­lish­ment—so much so that he wouldn’t even tell the Demo­crat­ic Sen­at­ori­al Cam­paign Com­mit­tee about his cam­paign launch.

But wary of his un­con­ven­tion­al cam­paign ap­proach, party lead­ers felt it was worth the risk to re­cruit Mc­Ginty, a more con­ven­tion­al politi­cian (most re­cently, she served as Gov. Tom Wolf’s chief of staff) even though it’s spark­ing a heated Demo­crat­ic primary. One seni­or Demo­crat­ic of­fi­cial wor­ried about Ses­tak’s elect­ab­il­ity still ac­know­ledged that he holds even odds to win the nom­in­a­tion. And giv­en the pub­lic’s grow­ing dis­taste of es­tab­lish­ment politi­cians, his out­sider per­sona would cer­tainly match the cur­rent polit­ic­al mo­ment.

If Pennsylvania’s Sen­ate primary of­fers a con­trast in can­did­ates’ back­grounds, the Flor­ida race between two wildly dif­fer­ing con­gress­men—DSCC-backed Patrick Murphy and pro­gress­ive pu­gil­ist Alan Grayson—will be a jar­ring con­trast in ideo­logy. Murphy is one of the most cent­rist Demo­crat­ic of­fice­hold­ers in Con­gress, win­ning past sup­port from the U.S. Cham­ber of Com­merce. Be­cause of that, party lead­ers view him as the most elect­able can­did­ate to pick up a seat in a cru­cial battle­ground state. But Grayson, who has built a na­tion­al pro­file thanks to his scath­ing, over-the-top at­tacks against Re­pub­lic­ans, is bet­ting that, like Trump, he’s the can­did­ate that best ap­peals to the party’s base.

By the tra­di­tion­al met­rics of fun­drais­ing and en­dorse­ments, the Sen­ate primary in Mary­land shouldn’t even be com­pet­it­ive. Rep. Chris Van Hol­len raised nearly three times as much as Rep. Donna Ed­wards in the last fun­drais­ing quarter, and has been win­ning over the ma­jor­ity of Demo­crat­ic elec­ted of­fi­cials in the state, in­clud­ing in her home county. For Van Hol­len, be­ing one of the House’s most in­flu­en­tial Demo­crats as a past DCCC chair­man and cur­rent rank­ing mem­ber on the Budget Com­mit­tee usu­ally con­fers polit­ic­al be­ne­fits. But Ed­wards is bet­ting that her iden­tity is a more power­ful polit­ic­al as­set than his in­flu­ence. In a state where a near-ma­jor­ity of Demo­crat­ic voters are Afric­an-Amer­ic­an, run­ning to be the only black wo­man in the Sen­ate car­ries clear ap­peal. There are signs that her as­sump­tion is ac­cur­ate: Her cam­paign re­leased polling in Au­gust show­ing her lead­ing Van Hol­len by 5 points.

The oth­er two not­able Demo­crat­ic primar­ies—in Ohio and Illinois—wouldn’t even be tak­ing place if party lead­ers had more sway over their can­did­ates. Demo­crat­ic of­fi­cials as­sumed that 30-year-old Cin­cin­nati city coun­cil­man P.G. Sit­ten­feld, who entered Ohio’s Sen­ate race in Janu­ary, would step aside if former Gov. Ted Strick­land de­cided to run (which he did). In­stead, Sit­ten­feld stuck to his plan and has been a per­sist­ent nuis­ance to Strick­land, at­tack­ing the former gov­ernor over his ad­vanced age and his flip-flop­ping on is­sues. He’s very un­likely to win, but the primary is worth keep­ing an eye on giv­en the clear gen­er­a­tion­al con­trast. If the party’s voters want fresh­er faces, Strick­land could have a tough­er chal­lenge than he an­ti­cip­ated.

In Illinois, Sen­ate Minor­ity Whip Dick Durbin worked to clear the primary field for Rep. Tammy Duck­worth, an Ir­aq War vet­er­an who looked like the strongest can­did­ate to chal­lenge Sen. Mark Kirk. But former Chica­go Urb­an League pres­id­ent An­drea Zo­pp didn’t get the mes­sage, and is hop­ing to rally Afric­an-Amer­ic­an voters to her side in the primary. With the DSCC fully be­hind Duck­worth, she’s a long shot, but her re­cord as a busi­ness lead­er and at­tor­ney should give her enough cre­den­tials to get at­ten­tion.

Since the start of the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion, it’s the Re­pub­lic­ans that have been badly di­vided and their fac­tions have per­col­ated in con­gres­sion­al primar­ies. For the most part, Demo­crats avoided the messy fate of their coun­ter­parts. But with the pres­id­ent leav­ing of­fice, there are signs that the battle for the Demo­crat­ic Party’s fu­ture is already un­der way. The res­ults from the five com­pet­it­ive Sen­ate primar­ies un­der­way will go a long way in set­ting the stage for a post-Obama fu­ture.