Declared dead by President Trump on Wednesday, centrist Democrats responded: We’re still alive.
Battling for control of the upper chamber, Trump’s dedicated significant time to rallies in red states attacking incumbent Senate Democrats up for re-election. The Democratic Party is being dragged leftward by “radical socialists,” Trump argued in a an op-ed Wednesday. “The truth,” Trump proclaimed, “is that the centrist Democratic Party is dead.”
“I’m alive, look,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, pointing to herself. “Ahhhh, I’m alive.”
The Missouri Democrat is in a tight race against Republican Josh Hawley. Trump’s comments come as Republicans have embraced his tactics on the campaign trail, pushing for a border wall and hard-right immigration policies, and have come under fire for racially-charged TV ads.
“There’s a bunch of us in both parties, we just don’t get much attention,” McCaskill added. “People on the edges get the attention because they’re more inflammatory — like President Trump.”
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the only Democrat to vote for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh last week after a contentious confirmation battle, brushed off Trump’s comments.
“I’m still alive and well,” Manchin joked. “My physical’s come back strong.”
Centrists have never been large in number, Manchin said, but they play a critical role. When Republicans seized control of the Senate in 2014, the ranks of centrist Democrats took a considerable hit as Democrats lost their re-election bids in red states, including Louisiana, North Carolina, Alaska, and Arkansas.
“I’ve never been crowded in that part of the party anyway,” Manchin said. “We can still make a difference because you’re not going to see … a 60-vote margin on either side anymore for a long time — whether it be Ds or Rs having that much of a majority.”
“Even though there’s few of us it doesn’t take that many to make a difference,” he added.
A Wednesday vote pushed by Democrats to do away with short-term healthcare plans that don’t cover pre-existing conditions is one example. The discharge petition, forced by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., failed to pass on a 50-50 vote. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a centrist, joined Democrats in voting for the bill. If Democrats were to gain one seat, which will only happen if the current red-state Democrats hold on and a candidate like centrist Democrat Kirsten Sinema in Arizona flips a GOP-held Senate seat, a vote like the one taken on Wednesday could succeed.
Trump’s description of Democrats as a party engulfed by socialist fantasies is meant to “frighten seniors and mobilize his party base,” said John Henderson, professor of political science at Yale University.
“The point about the so-called death of centrist Democrats is just flat wrong,” said Henderson, who specializes on polarization in American politics. “One only needs to look at the crop of challengers who are looking to replace House and Senate Republicans this fall in red states, to know that the moderate wing of the Democratic Party is alive and well.”
It’s “geography and timing” that’s put moderate Democrats in dangerous territory this cycle, said Henderson. And as the number of centrist Democrats could shrink in the Senate, their numbers in the House could grow exponentially.
[Also read: Trump says US ‘would end up’ Venezuela if Democrats win midterms]
Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., head of the centrist Blue Dog PAC dedicated to electing like-minded Democrats, expects moderate candidates to play a key role in catapulting Democrats into the House majority.
The Blue Dog Caucus is counting on their numbers to swell after the midterm elections, and they’re already preparing an agenda that would likely put them at odds with the progressives within the larger Democratic caucus.
“Democrats are running in these tough districts, they’re able to localize the race, pretty much kill any thought that they’re just the typical [Nancy] Pelosi Democrat,” said Schrader, referring to Republican attack ads tethering every Democratic candidate to their longtime leader California Democrat Nancy Pelosi. “The president’s whistling in the wind and trying to create his own news cycle.”
The man responsible for Senate Democrats’ campaign arm and messaging during the midterm elections, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, said the “reality is that it’s the Trump party that has shrunk considerably.”
“The reality is that Republicans here keep pushing to eliminate protections for people with pre-existing conditions,” Van Hollen said. “We saw the vote today — Republicans, with one exception, voting like lemmings to take away people’s protections, take away affordable healthcare.”
“He’s going to say what he’s going to say,” said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont. “I’m running against a guy who doesn’t know rural America, doesn’t know Montana, wants to privatize public lands, want’s to privatize education, never voted for a [veterans] bill in his life, that’s the issues. Doesn’t matter what Trump says.”
Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, whose vote against Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination could make or break her re-election bid, offered a quick retort to Trump’s assertion that the centrist wing is dead before getting in a car outside the Capitol.
“I’m fighting to keep it alive,” she said.
Sen. Doug Jones, who flipped a GOP-held seat in the deep South last December, put it more bluntly.
“That’s just crap,” said the Alabama Democrat. “Let him think that.”
