A Broken Party

I've read through the Politics PA piece about what happened in Pennsylvania in the 2016 election, and I find myself seething. It's an excellent, well-written piece, and I encourage you to read it, but what it tells us as Democrats should leave you livid. The Democratic Party is absolutely non-existent right now, outside of urban areas.

If you look at the map above, which is from that article, you can see the simple truth- Democrats don't win in many places. Sure, we win in places with people, which is nice, but in most corners of Pennsylvania, Democrats are a dying breed. Hillary's narrow loss in the state may not drive that point home hard enough, nor probably does the victories in the three row office races in PA either. The 13-5 Congressional split, and the 32-18 State Senate splits should be enough, but House Democrats in Harrisburg are down by roughly 40 seats moving forward. Democrats aren't winning much of anything outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The rest of the state is a sea of red, with a few blue dots where smaller urban areas are.

How did the Democratic Party get here? I see a few main reasons:

1. Bad messaging- The major party themes we are talking about don't apply much in Luzerne and Erie County, let alone in Mercer or Blair. Democrats have things to talk about with rural voters- protecting their streams and water supplies, increasing access to apprenticeship programs for trade, fighting for education funding for their kids, mortgage protections to keep people in their homes, and building new roads and bridges in their communities- but we didn't do that very much these past few cycles, choosing instead to fight on social issues and issues that don't resonate outside of the center cities. You don't have to abandon your base and the issues they care about, but you don't have to devote 100% of your message to them either.
2. Bad candidates- This is a topic that isn't getting nearly enough attention. Democrats aren't exactly running candidates that fit their districts. Look, I understand the party wants candidates that fit the principles of the party, but sometimes you have to represent the people that live there. Particularly in rural Pennsylvania, the Democratic Party has to cultivate local elected officials that can then move up and win state and federal office, instead of picking candidates that fit an ideological set of goals. Even worse yet, on the state legislative level Democrats are running some candidates who literally are unprepared and unqualified for the job. Running people from the community, who hold some level of expertise, would be very nice.
3. Partisan Disconnect- Here's a fact that will blow your mind: Republicans have not won a statewide, state-level race since 2013. Tom Wolf was elected Governor in 2014, Democrats swept the five judicial seats in 2015, and won all three row offices in 2016. So why do Democrats hold just six of the 20 federal seats, and why did they lose for President? The long and short of that would seem to be that we are becoming similar to Southern States in the 1990's, where Democrats still won at the state-level, but lost at the federal level because of a voter distrust and dislike of the national party. The lack of clear partisan values to define the party allow the opposition to define the national party in foreign and negative terms, while candidates from here can still win. 

Democrats in Luzerne County handed Donald Trump a victory of over 20,000 votes, but still voted for the Democrats for row offices. In Northampton County, Trump won by 5,000 votes, but Democrats still won the county for two of three row offices. By the same token, Democrats made no progress in taking back either house of the state legislature, and Democrats picked up no Congressional seats. This suggests a broken party. It can only win elections that involve their very best Pennsylvania candidates, and nothing else.

Many of the party's leaders like to spend their time in back rooms, raising money and making deals about who will support who in primaries and other in-house squabbles. The result of that line of thinking is a party in decay, a party that isn't winning elections and governing. In 2017, we'd be best advised to get back to the grassroots, and trying to compete in places where we currently barely exist.