The 2016 election cycle has been absolutely crushing for the Democratic Party. Throughout the country Democrats were battered by Republicans in multiple races.
President-elect Donald Trump scored a surprise victory against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, but this was only the beginning of the problem for national Democrats.
In Congress, the Democrats were absolutely obliterated. In the Senate, they failed to regain a majority. The battle for the Senate was key for Republicans, who expected to need control to check Hillary Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees, among many other things. Their failure to defeat vulnerable candidates such as Sens. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, and Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, highlight these shortcomings.
In the House of Representatives, the Democrats only picked up five out of 435 total seats. With many Republican seats being toss-ups, this must be seen as a great failure to eat away at a strong Republican majority.
The question must be asked. Why did this happen? The answer is more clear than it may seem.
First, Democrats all the way down the ticket failed to understand that this was a change election. In the current political climate and the rise of Trump, they simply underestimated how angry people were with status quo politics within the beltway.
In my opinion, this is best exemplified by the defeats of former Democrat senators Evan Bayh in Indiana and Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. These candidates were both perceived to be favorites in their respective bids to reclaim their old seats.
Voters rejected these attempts. Bayh lost by nearly ten points, and Feingold lost by 3.4 points. The Democrats’ failure to realize people wanted new blood in Washington, D.C., resulted in them losing what seemed to be a certain Senate majority.
What happened in the House is also a huge blow for Democrats.
Almost a third of their entire caucus comes from California, New York and Ohio. Why did this happen? I reason that this response is voters rejecting legislation like President Obama’s health care act and rejecting the push for an increase in identity politics.
House races are a better indication of the feelings of smaller constituencies because they’re smaller voting blocs unless they’re from an at-large congressional district, like Wyoming or Montana.
Regardless of the reasons, one thing is certain. If the Democratic Party wants to restore its former power, they must reform their party and do it quickly.
The defeat they suffered is cataclysmic. Many of their beloved pieces of legislation, like “Obamacare” and Dodd-Frank, may be scrapped. This will be hard for liberals to stomach, but there isn’t much they can do at this point except watch.
With a unified Republican legislature and executive, let’s hope good, clean, conservative legislation is passed to help fix some of the problems for everyday Americans.
This will cause the Democrats to reform from within and try to mount a serious defense of several vulnerable Senate seats they have in 2018.
At this point, the future is bleak for the Democratic Party. It will be a long four years for them.
