As a loyal Democrat as opposed to a
progressive I know that ideological purity only gets you so far and not in a
lot of places. I've repeatedly made this argument when it comes to how the
Justice Democrats platform is not the path back to power for Democrats.
However rather than relitigate that I think
that it's time to deal with the kinds of candidates and elected officials who should
be the center of the path back to power. I've made these arguments before,
particularly in regard to a grass roots approach as well as a 50 state strategy
and there are signs that last year the party was taking it seriously. It was
clear not just in the governor's race in Virginia and New Jersey but
overperforming in ruby red districts in Florida and Tennessee. They won
statehouse races in Iowa that hadn't gotten Democratic in 20 years, they won
local offices in Georgia, they even won the mayoral race in Miami for the first
time in nearly thirty years. That's what we call a good start.
The midterms will be a different story. We
all know about the fights that are being waged in the House over redistricting
so it might make more sense to talk about the Senate. I'll be breaking it down
individual races later this year when we have more information but for the
purposes of this article I'd like to start with the general facts.
The Democrats know it's an uphill battle
with only two seats that they're focusing their energy on: Susan Collins in
Maine and Thom Tillis's in North Carolina. Once again, they're also targeting
Texas. But going to industrial states, blue state Democrats and swing states
won't do the job. The Democrats need to expand the map. And earlier this week they indicated that
they're willing to at least make the effort in a state that at first glance
couldn't be more red.
Alaska has not gone for a Democrat in a
presidential election since 1964 during LBJ's landslide. But it's never been a
Republican state. Ernest Gruening, one of its first Senators and a man who led
the drive to statehood, was one of its first Democratic Senators. A man known
for his independent thought he was one of only two Senators to vote against the
Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964 – a move that cost him the nomination of his
party when he ran for reelection.
While it is unfortunately best known for
being the state that brought us Sarah Palin back in 2008 none of its Senators
and representative have fit in the conventional mode belong to either party.
Mike Gravel and Mark Begich were not typical Democratic Senators any more than
Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkoswki were the average Republican. Murkowski has
always been one of the most moderates in the Senate since her first election
and that is true today. We need Murkowski in the Senate – and we also need
people like Mary Peltola.
Mary Peltola is an Alaskan indigenous
person. She was elected to the Alaska House of representatives in 1999 and
would serve their for ten years. She helped rebuild a caucus of bipartisan
representatives in that state who represent rural and off-road communities in
Alaska. She criticized the No Child Left Behind Act rules that would impede
continuing the practice of administering test in Western Alaskan schools in the
native Yupik language. She authored a law which allowed teachers to be given
exemption from jury duty if they work at schools that failed to meet adequate
process, and governor Frank Murkowski signed into law.
She has worked across the aisle, helping
Lisa Murkowski's successful write-in campaign after losing the Republican
primary in 2010. She served on city council and the native tribal council.
Then in 2022 Don Young, Alaska's at large
Congressional representative died and the special election to fill his seat was
conducted under ranked-choice voting. Peltola was one of three candidates to
advance, the only Democrat against Nick Begich III and Sarah Palin. Al Gross an
independent in third dropped out and endorsed Peltola. Peltola defeated Palin
in the run-off.
If you had any awareness of this race in
2022 it was only because of the presence of Sarah Palin. Certainly no one noted
when she chose to run for a full term in 2022 when she defeated Palin again
this time with 55 percent of the vote. The fact that she was being endorsed by
Lisa Murkowski should have made it clear that she was the kind of
representative that Congress needed. Instead it seems to have painted a target
on her back.
Peltola was only the fourth Native woman
elected to Congress which means she was a woman of color and a Democrat. Yet
despite that there's no sign that AOC or any of the Justice Democrats ever
invited her to join 'The Squad'. That would have suited Peltola just fine as
Peltola is not their color of Democrat.
Peltola represents what was considered the
rebuilding of the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, which I'll be writing about in
a different series down the roads. In 2022 it referred to Democrats who had
been elected in districts that had been carried by Donald Trump and were
traditionally Republican. Peltola was part of a group that included Maine
Congressman Jared Golden, Minnesota Democrat Angie Craig and Washington's Marie
Gluesenkamp Perez. These representatives, much like Laura Gillen and Thomas
Suozzi in New York, represent constituents that are far more conservative then
the ones that AOC and the Justice Democrats do which as I mentioned are among
the bluest in the country.
Its worth noting that for all the traveling
AOC has done over her tenure in Congress she has never gone to an area that is
remotely close to purple much less a rural area like Alaska. And no doubt the idea of someone who is
respected by Republicans and works with them rather than calling them the enemy
from social media would be as foreign a concept to her as Yupik would be. And as we all know in the minds of the left
the only thing worst then a Republican is a moderate Democrat, much less the
idea that people in Alaska might not have the same values as Harlem.
Peltola is pro-choice and has voted against
legislation that would have banned transgender women in sports. But because she
is from Alaska she is also in favor of oil development and most critically gun
rights. She was the only Democratic candidate endorsed by the NRA in 2024 and
all of this made it impossible for many progressive to stand her.
In November of 2024 she narrowly lost
reelection to Nick Begich III. Many people mourned her departure from Congress,
though not one of the new Vice Chairs of the DNC. David Hogg lambasted her as
awful on Gun Control and bid her good riddance. Petola is from Alaska where to
put it mildly people have a different view on gun control and the average voter
is not as progressive as Hogg is. That he chose a Democrat being replaced by a
Republican even as he was about to run for a position of power in the DNC
should have been a bigger warning sign that he cares more about a candidate
being right than winning elected office.
Now of course Hogg is gone from the DNC and
Peltola is running for the Senate in Alaska running against Dan Sullivan.
Sullivan has been in the Senate since 2014 when he defeated Democrat Mark
Begich. (Mark is Nick Begich III's cousin and while Mark is a Democrat Nick is
a Republican.) Sullivan ran against Al Gross in 2020 but back then no Democrat
chose to compete against him. (Gross ran as an independent both then and in
2022.)
During the 2020 elections it should be
noted the Democratic Party spend much of tis time focusing far more on candidates
they wanted to defeat but it was selective. They put a lot of time and energy
into defeating Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham and in both cases were
trounced horribly. And even then in some deep blue states margins were thinning.
Gary Peters' barely beat John James in Michigan and Tina Smith barely won over
Jason Lewis in Minnesota. This was the clearest sign yet that the Democratic
Party's lock on states that were deep blue or swing states was beginning to
lose ground. It should have been much easier for the Democrats to flip the
Senate in theory: the Republicans were defending 22 seats and the Democrats
were defending 11. Instead the Democrats only gained three seats – and two of
them were in Georgia and involved runoffs.
I'm not going to relitigate the arguments
for filibuster reform or making new states because they're irrelevant to this series
of articles: the Democrats are in the minority as we go into 2026. The reason
we're in the minority is relevant and that is because ever since the
Democrats began their left-wing move more or less after the disaster that was
the 2014 midterms we have been going backwards. And the reason is entirely
because of the left's attitude of progressive Democrats being the only model
and moderates being unacceptable.
Paula Jean Swearengin's two losses in the
West Virginia Senate race - first
against Joe Manchin in the 2018 Democratic primary, then when Shelly Jean
Sapito landslided her with 70 percent of the vote in 2020 – should have been
the clearest sign possible as to the ceiling of left-wing politics as a Democratic
brand. Much of the Democrats return to power in the 2006 and 2008 election was
built on winning Democratic Senators in what were red states.
Ever since the rise of the Tea Party in
2010 those red state Democrats have been disappearing until 2024 when the last
of them Sherrod Brown lost reelection. (I will be dealing with him in a
separate article.) Simultaneously in 2024 the Republicans managed to gain for
seats. One of them was in Pennsylvania where Bob Casey who'd been elected in
2006 (when the fifty state strategy was first used) lost to Dave McCormick. The
map is getting smaller for Democrats in their blue states. And considering that
Elissa Slotkin just barely managed to win election in Michigan to Mike Rogers in
2024 we might not be able to count on that state for Democrats
The attitude of the left, well before Trump
took office, was that the red states where 'nobody lives' had too much power. In
truth the brand of progressivism that these activists demand has never historically
sold there and Democrats have had Senators in many of these states as recently
as 2018. By repeatedly focusing their attention on the bigger states such as
Texas and Florida the Democrats have lost senators such as Heidi Heitkamp of
North Dakota, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and last year Jon Tester of Montana.
Considering the left's attitude of Joe Manchin and Mary Peltola they might well
consider this well and good. To those of us who are Democrats like me it's been
a millstone.
The only way for Democrats to win is to first
expand the map and more importantly acknowledge that the Elizabeth Warren-Chris
Murphy brand that plays in deep blue New England will not play in states across
the country and barely plays in Democrat states right now. We have to go to
where the voters are and there are voters in the states that 'nobody lives in'.
Peltola running against Sullivan is a step
in the right direction; Sullivan himself has acknowledged that she will be a
difficult opponent. Much of this has been proven in her career which involves
the ability to work across the aisle, appeal to a more conservative voter who
might be willing to vote Democrat but not for a Justice Democrat.
270towin has adjusted the race to Lean Democrat which is already a step
in the right direction.
I'm not saying it will be easy to win this
race. What I am saying is that the Democrats have to do the work and that means
grass roots ones in every state they've written off for years. Mary Peltola running
in Alaska is a good first step and even if she loses, it gives me hope that this
is the kind of fight the Democrats are willing to wage.
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