After the euphoria of January, more than seven months have passed since the 2018 midterm elections and many Democrats are becoming depressed and discouraged. A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll showed Democrats leading Republicans by just 3 percentage points, the worst result in the party’s current lead since the past two midterm elections.
“I would say that’s pretty discouraging,” said Patrick Franke, a Democratic senator from Pennsylvania who served as deputy campaign manager for the last Democratic senatorial candidate in that state, Joe Sestak.
Sestak narrowly lost in a 2010 election in which national Democrats saw hope in the US Senate candidate and figurehead, former president Bill Clinton.
Republicans become complacent – and Democrats get nervous Read more
Now, a few hundred miles from the campaigns that saw Clinton and Sestak defeat entrenched Republicans, several Democratic senators are thinking about moving on or have already announced plans to do so.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” Franke said. “But we’re prepared to win back the majority in 2020 and the Democrats are going to be very, very competitive and ready to win back the majority in 2022.”
In the meantime, Democrats are looking for a way forward and Republicans are poised to attack. They’ve already been working on putting together a roadmap that identifies areas where they believe they can win elections, and strategies that they expect to win the next presidential election.
They face the same headwinds they did three years ago: a presidential administration that is unpopular with the public.
Read more on how Republicans keep winning big.