This year, not even partisans are excited to vote for their respective parties’ presidential nominees. Only 41 percent of Democrats, for example, said they would be enthusiastic about voting for Hillary Clinton, according to a June CNN/ORC poll.
But unlike their Republican counterparts, Democrats have several tricks up their sleeves for ginning up enthusiasm in lieu of an inspiring nominee. The most obvious is Donald Trump, who still divides the GOP but rallies large parts of the Democratic base.
Democrats aren’t limited to fear and loathing of Trump, however. The party has identified a number of issues that could bring their voters to the polls. One is guns.
While Republicans tended to view the murders at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., as an act of Islamic terrorism, Democrats see it primarily through the lens of domestic gun violence. This has led to yet another push for gun control, complete with a brief sit-in on the House floor that received considerable media coverage.
The sit-in predictably fizzled without any legislation advancing (Democrats simply don’t have the votes in the House). Nevertheless, rank-and-file Democrats are increasingly agitated by the failure to expand gun control following a series of highly publicized events beginning with the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The protest was an opportunity to raise some money and get them excited.
Did it work? “I think Democrats actually completely botched this,” Republican strategist Liz Mair told the Washington Examiner. “They had a good opening, but pushing a policy that was very publicly and aggressively opposed by the ACLU while news reports were making it clear that a primary issue with regard to Orlando was law enforcement failings guaranteed some real problems for them.”
At the same time, anything that allows Democrats to portray themselves as standing up to the reactionary Republican forces of irrationality is bound to be a plus for many of their voters.
Next is immigration. Clinton is already running against Trump as an actively anti-Latino candidate, with a laundry list of statements beginning with his campaign announcement stretching all the way to the controversy over the “Mexican” judge handling the Trump University case.
After the Supreme Court’s ruling against President Obama’s executive action relieving millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, Clinton wasted no time in tying the split decision back to Trump and the fall campaign. She called it “a stark reminder of the harm Donald Trump would do to our families, our communitiesand our country.”
Here too, there’s no guarantee this will be a winning issue with the electorate as a whole. Republicans are plainly angry about immigration. But it should get some Democratic voters to the polls.
Judges and the composition of the Supreme Court could galvanize progressive voters across the board. With the confirmation of Merrick Garland or another Democratic nominee to replace Antonin Scalia, the liberal bloc would be in the majority. A couple more retirements over the next four years could ensconce that majority for a generation, with major implications for abortion, gay rights and affirmative action.
The Obama administration has also lent a helping hand, weighing in on all these issues and creating some new ones with controversial guidance on transgender bathroom use. “The Obama White House will rub whatever raw political nerves it takes to kick up a culture clash in order to mobilize the Obama election coalition for Hillary Clinton’s flagging campaign,” the Wall Street Journal editorialized when that directive was issued.
Republicans are trying to scuttle some of these strategies, such as with Trump’s increased LGBT outreach post-Orlando. Yet their enthusiasm gap still lacks comparable creative solutions.
