MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” spent several minutes Monday morning hammering home the fact that the Democratic Party is in a historically weak position thanks in large part to the party’s stunning losses across the middle of the country under former President Barack Obama.
“Well, the national Democratic Party, as you know, is defined as a bicoastal party and not as a national party,” said Dan Balz, the Washington Post’s chief correspondent. “It’s strong on the coasts and the leadership tends to come from the coasts and the message comes from the coasts. That doesn’t play as well through many of the states up for grabs in 2017, 2018 — 2018 in particular. So there’s the absence of a kind of a message that resonates in some of these states.”
“I think also the fact is there’s no bench in a lot of these states for the Democrats. They’ve been wiped out in the state legislatures, they’ve been wiped out in many statewide races and so they struggle to find an attractive candidate they can put up in a statewide race like the governor’s race. And so one thing plays on the other and over the last 8 years it has been a wipeout and you know partly that’s been because there have been two terrible midterm elections in 2010 and 2014 and most of the gubernatorial races are in the midterm years,” Balz continued.
“You know, if you look back eight years ago, the Democrats actually had a majority of the governorships, but under President Obama, they got wiped out, and the absence of a bench makes it all the more difficult to find the right candidate who can win in those states.”
Host Joe Scarborough insisted on putting up the numbers of the Democratic party’s losses in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections to hammer the point home.
“There were two just massive Republican years: 76 house seats lost, 13 senate seats, as we’ve been saying, Steve Radner. also, the governorships are at an all-time low, tied with 1922. Dan is exactly right,” Scarborough concluded. “Their bench has been absolutely decimated.”
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