Democrats enter 2016 with history and momentum on our side

The 2015 elections are behind us, and Republicans seem to have learned all the wrong lessons from the results.

The leaders of the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) want us to believe that 2015’s off-year races were a continuation of the 2014 GOP wave (“An autopsy isn’t the answer,” November 23, 2015), but their comparison is deeply flawed.

{mosads}The election 2015 most closely resembles is actually 2011 – the last year in which all of 2015’s races were on the ballot. And the similarities are clear.

Democrats won a governor’s race in a red state by a surprisingly wide margin in 2011 (Kentucky), a feat that was repeated in 2015 (Louisiana). In both years, Democrats gained legislative seats in New Jersey but fell just a single seat short of the majority in the Virginia Senate.

In an improvement on 2011, Democrats this year also gained seats in the Virginia House and Louisiana Senate and won control of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which will have major redistricting implications in 2020.

Given how much Democrats have to celebrate in 2015, Republicans would be irresponsible to interpret these results as a national mandate or even a positive GOP trend.

But the greatest similarity between 2011 and 2015 might be the overall political climate in which these elections took place:  Each was just 12 months after a midterm wave swept Republicans into power across the country, with chaotic GOP presidential primaries already in full swing.

In retrospect, the 2011 elections reflected an electorate that had already grown uneasy with the Republican agenda they’d enabled the previous fall and that was surprised by the unchecked extremism they witnessed as GOP policy-makers and presidential contenders lurched to the right.

This year’s similar election results amid a similar climate demonstrate that voters are in a similar mood today. That possibility should make Republicans extremely nervous next fall.

Just one year after the 2011 elections, voters handed Democrats a series of decisive, nationwide victories. President Obama won reelection; Democrats gained U.S. House seats, Senate seats, and governorships; and Democrats gained majorities in eight legislative chambers, with an overall pickup of 125 seats nationwide.

The Democratic victory in that subsequent year was so complete that the Republican National Committee issued an “autopsy” of the type some Republicans now belittle. Further, evidence suggests that every meaningful recommendation of the GOP report has been ignored.

If this historic pattern holds, Democratic gains next fall could be even stronger:  A dozen Republican-held legislative chambers are highly vulnerable in even a moderately strong year for Democrats. That number could rise above 20 if a truly momentous Democratic wave develops.

After our party’s decisive wins in 2012, the head of the RSLC remarked that legislative Republicans had “lost on operations and tactics.” The DLCC is moving aggressively to lay the groundwork for such gains again by making targeted early investments in legislative battleground states and building a robust, grassroots infrastructure in the districts that will decide majorities in 2016.

Central to these efforts is the DLCC’s Grassroots Victory Program (GVP), which trains and deploys hundreds of organizers to dozens of states each cycle. Through their hard work and that of the volunteers they recruit, Democratic legislative candidates consistently out-perform the top of the ticket in most races where GVP-trained organizers are deployed. That crucial edge helped secure the winning margin for Democrats in several of the closest-fought legislative battleground chambers of 2012 and 2014.

Despite claims to the contrary, Republicans lost in 2012 precisely because their party is not led by a diverse slate of “open, hopeful candidates.” In 2015, it was led by men like Mississippi state Rep. Bubba Carpenter (R), who won re-election in the whitest legislative district in Mississippi by promising to prevent “a black judge” from deciding education cases impacting schools in his predominantly white neighborhood.

In New Jersey, where Democrats gained their largest majority in decades, the 2015 GOP ticket was led by men like Anthony Cappola, a star Republican recruit in one of Democrats’ most vulnerable districts, who lost his race after the discovery of his self-published book “filled with rants, slurs and stereotypes about gay men and women, blacks, Asians, senior citizens, Muslims and foreign-born business owners.”

And in Virginia, Republicans’ most prominent recruit was Manassas Mayor Hal Parrish, who led the charge for city ordinances that were used to effectively ban abortion clinics in Manassas and evict Latino citizens from city limits. Parrish lost handily to Democrat Jeremy McPike in one of Virginia’s most diverse – and competitive – senate districts.

In 2015, such extreme, out-of-touch views were clearly a liability for Republicans, just as the RNC’s post-2012 autopsy predicted.

In 2016, the presidential election will help nearly double turnout from what it was a year ago, even as the nation continues to become more diverse and friendlier to progressive social values on issues like immigration, abortion and LGBT rights.

Democrats enter next year’s campaign firmly on the side of an American electorate that overwhelmingly believes everyone should have access to affordable health care, the minimum wage should be raised, and the wealthy and large corporations should pay their fair share in taxes.

Meanwhile, Republicans up and down the ballot advocate Hal Parrish’s policies on abortion and immigration, Anthony Cappola’s views on LGBT rights, and Rep. Carpenter’s approach to race relations.

Not only have Republicans failed to learn from their 2012 failures or their post-election autopsy, but they also mistakenly believe that the 2015 elections validate their extreme rhetoric and policies. Consequently, the GOP seems convinced that 2014’s GOP wave will continue into 2016. However, history indicates that Republicans are in for a rude awakening.

Williams is executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC).