For all the focus on President Obama’s desire to see a Democrat win the White House in 2016, the less-heralded races at the state and local levels could determine the fate of his policies.
The Republican stranglehold on state legislatures and governors’ mansions has served as a growing source of frustration among Democrats, with many blaming the president’s prescriptions and lack of focus on local contests for the abysmal showing.
With the 2016 chatter already in overdrive — Hillary Clinton’s burrito order has turned into a multiple-day story — White House officials are at least offering assurances that the way-down-ballot races won’t get overshadowed.
“It’s of paramount importance to the president,” a senior administration official told the Washington Examiner of the need to roll back GOP gains. “That’s part of the reason you’re seeing him take his message to places more aligned with Republicans. He’d be the first to acknowledge we have to do better in this area. And he’s confident that we’ll see some changes in 2016.”
Already this year, Obama has traveled to conservative bastions, including South Carolina, Alabama, Utah, Idaho and Kansas.
The White House also reached out to party loyalists at the local level, hosting a group of leaders representing the State Innovation Exchange, which progressives hope can become the liberal alternative to conservative-backed organizations, such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
How the White House goes from merely identifying the problem to actually winning back statehouses will be the subject of vigorous debate in coming months. Some Democrats believe a strong showing by Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, will naturally have a carryover effect in state and local contests.
Analysts, however, are more skeptical that one presidential election can reverse the trend.
“Basically every president since World War II has lost substantial numbers of state legislatures, governors, you name it — but Obama has the record,” said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia who has extensively studied the Democratic bleeding in recent years.
“When you have midterms like 2010 and 2014, there’s almost nothing you can do to overcome that in one election. It matters because Democrats are wiping out the bench for their party.”
Since 2008, Democrats have lost control of 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats, 910 state legislative seats, 30 state legislative chambers and 11 gubernatorial posts.
The Democratic National Committee, in an autopsy following the disastrous 2014 midterms, highlighted that trend, saying Democrats needed to articulate a message that played outside of major metropolitan areas. In a blunt assessment, DNC officials said the party needed to do a better job winning over white voters.
Obama is already feeling the effects of overwhelmingly Republican legislatures and a growing number of GOP governors.
Nearly two-dozen states are resisting Medicaid expansion, a centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act.
Red states have also led the legal challenge against Obama’s executive action offering millions of illegal immigrants new protections. And some conservative states are hinting they won’t follow the administration’s new limits on carbon emissions from power plants, even if the rules withstand judicial scrutiny.
“It has created a problem for the administration because the implementation of these executive orders requires cooperation at the state and local levels,” said former Republican congressman Bob Walker of Pennsylvania. “What they’re finding is people who are prepared to sue them. And the control of the state legislatures by the Republicans puts Democrats on notice that this may not change by the time we get around to the next census.”
Redistricting is arguably the most troubling aspect of the Democratic losses for Obama, as he eyes his legacy after leaving office.
State officials will redraw the congressional lines in 2021. Without a major reversal in the makeup of statehouses, Republicans could produce a map that improves their likelihood of controlling the lower chamber for the following decade.
At least so far, Obama is inextricably linked to a Republican resurgence at the state level, a hard fact even his allies would concede.
“It’s cyclical, but those losses have to be a part of the broader Obama story,” a veteran Democratic pollster told the Examiner. “It’s a massive hole to dig out of — we could feel this for years to come.”
