Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Democrats\u2019 own research shows that some battleground voters think the party is \u201cpreachy,\u201d \u201cjudgmental\u201d and \u201cfocused on culture wars,\u201d according to documents obtained by POLITICO.<\/p>\n
And the party’s House campaign arm had a stark warning for Democrats: Unless they more forcefully confront the GOP\u2019s \u201calarmingly potent\u201d culture war attacks, from critical race theory to defunding the police, they risk losing significant ground to Republicans in the midterms.<\/p>\n
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is recommending a new strategy to endangered members and their teams, hoping to blunt the kinds of GOP attacks that nearly erased their majority last election and remain a huge risk ahead of November. In presentations over the past two weeks, party officials and operatives used polling and focus group findings to argue Democrats can\u2019t simply ignore the attacks, particularly when they’re playing at a disadvantage. A generic ballot of swing districts from late January showed Democrats trailing Republicans by 4 points, according to the polling.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t all bleak, though: The data showed that Democrats could mostly regain the ground lost to Republicans if they offered a strong rebuttal to the political hits. When faced with a \u201cdefund the police\u201d attack, for instance, the presenters encouraged Democrats to reiterate their support for police. And on immigration, they said Democrats should deny support for \u201copen borders or amnesty,\u201d and talk about their efforts to keep the border safe.<\/p>\n
If Democrats don’t answer Republican hits, the party operatives warned, the GOP’s lead on the generic ballot balloons to 14 points from 4 points \u2014 a dismal prediction for Democrats when the GOP only needs to win five seats to seize back the majority. But when voters heard a Democratic response to that hit, Republicans’ edge narrowed back down to 6 points, giving candidates more of a fighting chance, especially since those numbers don’t factor in Democrats going on the offensive.<\/p>\n
Many Democrats, led by DCCC chief Sean Patrick Maloney<\/a> (D-N.Y.), have pushed to more forcefully counter the GOP\u2019s attacks since the last election. But that message has picked up new urgency as President Joe Biden\u2019s approval has tanked in recent weeks, stoking more party anxiety. The solution does not lie in policy proposals, the pollsters found, because voters are not generally opposed to Democratic policies. \u201cRather, Democrats need to demonstrate they fully understand and care about stressors in people\u2019s lives\u201d and focus on the issues \u201cwithout stoking divisive cultural debates,\u201d one of the slides said.<\/p>\n Summarizing the party’s midterm problems bluntly, the presentation notes that voters think Democrats \u201care not making good use of their majority.\u201d<\/p>\n For many swing-district Democrats, it’s a grim affirmation. They\u2019ve sounded the alarm<\/a> about Republicans’ culture war attacks since before the last election as they watched the GOP unleash increasingly brutal ads that often contained misinformation. Not all Democrats addressed it head on, unsure how to respond to the distortions.<\/p>\n This cycle, however, Democratic officials are working to arm their incumbents with what they believe are the most solid defense to the Republican attacks. Rather than delivering a counterpunch or pivoting away from the issue, Democrats are urged to \u201ccorrect the record\u201d because \u201cchanging the subject risks confirming suspicions.\u201d<\/p>\n They point to the special election last spring in New Mexico, where now-Rep. Melanie Stansbury<\/a> (D-N.M.) beat a GOP candidate who repeatedly accused her of trying to defund police and disband border patrol. Though she won a deep-blue district, Maloney, the DCCC chief, said Stansbury offered a template<\/a> for other members on how to run on Biden\u2019s agenda and fight attacks on the party\u2019s policing policies.<\/p>\n Still, Democratic officials clarified they are not trying to offer a specific rebuttal for the most potent issues in each district. Instead, they said the best response is one that is authentic to each member, and each race.<\/p>\n And Maloney has been upfront about the historic headwinds facing his party in 2022. During the summer, his team presented battleground polling<\/a> that showed Democrats trailing by 6 points on the generic ballot, and urged members to better tout Biden\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n This latest round of polling, commissioned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, was conducted via an online panel of 1,000 likely general election voters in battleground districts from Jan. 26-30. The margin of error was 3.1 percent. The project included additional interviews with Hispanic, Black and Asian American and Pacific Islander voters.<\/p>\n Global Strategy Group, Impact Research, HIT Strategies and BSP Research all conduct polling on behalf of the DCCC.<\/p>\n
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The internal presentation underscored some of those anxieties: The GOP hits are most effective with center-left voters, independents and Hispanic voters, demographic groups that Democrats have struggled to attract in recent years.<\/p>\n