These past two weeks have been a whirlwind of political games for many within the democratic party. The special elections in both Kansas and Georgia have proven to be a turning point for the Democrats if they wish to regain Congress and the Presidency.
I had the honor to move to Wichita to work the Kansas Fourth Congressional District special election. During the primary - well, before the district nominating convention, I worked on behalf of Dennis McKinney's campaign. I knocked doors, engaged with voters about the importance of voting by mail, and showing support for my candidate by gathering support from constituents. After the district convention, the democrats in the Kansas fourth decided to have James Thompson represent them as a nominee to run against Republican Ron Estes. I continued living in Kansas, with a close friend of mine, and we both volunteered for the Thompson campaign by making calls and knocking on doors towards the end of the campaign. In the end, the Thompson campaign came up only 6.8% short of winning. This is important because Trump won that district by at least 27 points and the Thompson campaign narrowed that margin. Kansas will be blue again; however, it will just have to wait until 2018.
The Georgia Sixth Congressional District race has been interesting to watch as well. Jon Ossoff was the overall "winner" of the election last week; however, he did not break the 50% threshold so now the race will go into a runoff against Republican Karen Handel. That runoff election will take place on June 20, 2017. There has been a lot of media attention on the Georgia Sixth race and not nearly enough on the Kansas Fourth race, so I won't speak too much on the Georgia Sixth.
With both the Kansas and Georgia races, we see two different dynamics emerge within the Democratic Party. The striking aspect is that both of these races yielded higher turnout numbers than usual for a special election. Even as Georgia Sixth goes to a runoff, the effect of 2016 is still visibly known. In Kansas, the voters in the Fourth decided to put fourth a nominee who is more aligned with the Bernie Sander's wing of the party. Now I am not saying there is anything wrong with that; however, I think this loss does provide some context as to how the Sanders model will prove to be problematic moving forward within the party. You can't have a "my way or else" mindset but have compromise on issues to advance the party. When the focus is shifted to Georgia Sixth race, we see someone who is more aligned with the "establishment" wing of the party. Overall Ossoff was able to speak to a larger audience while still maintaining his progressive candidacy. Furthermore, the problem with a "one size fits all" approach is that not every democrat is the same. To challenge another democrat's "progressiveness" to fit your ideals, or do challenge another democrat's understanding on party politics, does not help the party overall. We need to leave 2016 in the past and realize that it is 2017 and build rapports with all areas of the Democratic Party...not continue to burn them to the ground. If we cannot focus on winning and supporting Democrats in areas of the country that provides a challenge, then we will fail to win national elections - which will trickle down to state governments as well. So let's focus on winning the future of the party and not dwell on a lost past of divided party politics.
Now, let's focus on Montana and the Virginia races....and when Alabama nominates their party candidate, we will focus there as well!
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