The Democratic Party needs to innovate and restructure to compete with the Republicans under President Trump, a leading contender for Democratic National Committee chairman said in an interview.
Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., told the Washington Examiner that Democrats lost touch with heartland voters in the last election and said it won’t win going forward without reconnecting with a constituency that historically formed the backbone of the party.
Doing that, Buttigieg said, requires an overhaul and expansion of the Democratic Party’s national infrastructure to reach down into communities decimated in recent elections. Tactics and communications strategy also need to be reevaluated to account for Trump, an unconventional Republican.
“We’ve got to evolve for a new landscape,” Buttigieg said. “I don’t think anybody can look at the last election results and say that familiar rules apply — or that, for example, we can expect the historic pattern to hold and that the midterms will just happen our way.”
The party in power in the White House tends to lose seats in Congress in midterm elections. However, the 2018 Senate map is favorable to the GOP, and gerrymandered districts could limit Republican losses in the House.
Buttigieg, 35, is the dark horse in a field of candidates that includes favorites Tom Perez, who served as former President Barack Obama’s Labor secretary and was endorsed by Joe Biden, and Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., who has been endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
The case for Ellison is that he will motivate the anti-establishment, Sanders wing of the progressive movement. Perez is seen as an equally liberal candidate who can harness the financial support the DNC is going to need from wealthy Democratic donors to pay for a much-needed rebuilding.
Buttigieg isn’t aligned with either wing of the party, and some insiders believe that could give him the edge among the 470 voting members of the DNC who will elect the next chairman, probably sometime in March.
Buttigieg, who is gay, also has shown political savvy. He was the only top contender for DNC chairman to participate in the women’s march, the protest against Trump held in cities around the country, and around the world, the day after the president was inaugurated. And, Buttigieg happens to hail from the Midwest, where Democrats were hit the hardest in the 2016 elections.
Trump became the first Republican to win Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for the first time in three decades; Republicans also upset the Democrats in Senate races in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Buttigieg said flatly that his party is in bad shape, having lost dozens of seats in Congress, several governor’s mansions and nearly 1,000 seats in legislatures across the country.
“The party has to face that we’re very, very challenged right now. I’ve been making the case that even had we won the presidential election, we would be in a tough place,” he said. “You look at level of influence of the party at the state and local level and while we continue to do very well in the cities — with mayors, [but] our condition among state legislatures, a lot of key county offices, and on up through the Congress, is troubled.”
Buttigieg also sees opportunity.
It’s often when political parties are at a low point that they do what is necessary to find their way back to power, or at the very least capitalize on mistakes made by the majority.
That’s what happened to Democrats after President George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, and what happened to Republicans in 2010, Obama’s first midterm election.
Buttigieg said that while Democrats need to alter tactics and communications strategy, there is nothing wrong with their values or agenda.
“Dark moments are often the most fertile for the party,” Buttigieg said. “I think it’s similar now. On one hand, our field position is not good. On the other hand, the number people who are motivated, coming out of the woodwork, either returning to the game or coming in for the first time asking: ‘What can I do?’ is compelling.”
