The expected blue wave of Democratic party victories on election night didn’t materialize quite the way it was predicted during the early vote counts in the eastern half of the U.S. But a week later, as results of close races trickled in, the party has gained 32 seats in the House thus far, and appears headed to gain between 35 and 40 seats once all the votes are counted and validated. Initially, Democrats appeared to be losing some key Senate races, but a week later, after Kyrsten Sinema was declared the winner in Arizona, Democrats will likely lose one or two seats, rather than the three or four originally forecast.
Lower down on the ballot, Democrats flipped seven governorships, six state legislative chambers, and more than 300 state House and Senate seats on election night. With vote counts still underway in key races in Florida, Georgia and several in California, Democrats won a larger landslide in 2018 than Republicans did in either 1994 or 2010. The diversity of Democratic candidates, with a record-breaking number of victories by women and people of color in the 2018 election, is historic in and of itself.
NORMAN SOLOMON: In a significant extent, the Democrats were able to flip seats, I think in spite of the national party, not because of it. There are a lot of independent progressive groups that did a tremendous amount of outreach targeted to specific congressional districts with some really good results. And even when there were some high-profile, strong progressive candidates that did not win, such as Beto O’Rourke running for Senate in Texas; such as – and we don’t have the final results in – but probably Andrew Gillum, the gubernatorial candidate in Florida, has not won – we don’t know that for sure. But those candidates in Texas, in Florida, also Stacey Abrams in Georgia, who may not have won that gubernatorial race, but also inspired many people at the grassroots to turn out. And that really is the key word. Turnout was greatly enhanced by these dynamic progressive candidates like O’Rourke, like Gillum, like Abrams.
And that meant that people were also voting on down ballot positions. That meant Republicans lost some very close races. So the dynamism is really coming from progressives across the board in this country. That’s why people turn out. Who in particular am I referring to? I’m talking about young people who overwhelmingly vote against Republicans or Democrats when they vote – and people of color, likewise, when they vote. It’s not enough to say we’re going to vote against Republicans – as bad as they are and they’re surely atrocious – but to draw out people who are young, people of color who may feel understandably alienated from the political process. It’s essential to give them somebody to vote for who’s going to be on the ballot.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Recent polling has shown that the American people, by and large, support higher taxes on the wealthy; support Medicare for All; support a $15 minimum wage. With the House of Representatives now the Democratic majority, what is their obligation to follow up on that agenda? Given the fact that with a Republican-controlled Senate and the White House still under Donald Trump, pushing legislation forward is not really a viable option. But what kind of groundwork can be laid for a progressive agenda in these and many other areas over the next couple of years, while the Democrats do maintain a majority in the House?
NORMAN SOLOMON: Well, I think “groundwork” is a good word – that a lot won’t get accomplished until after the 20/20 election. But it is possible to block some bad legislation because Democrats control the House starting in January. And also because of the sort of push-pull to some extent to be able to get some legislation passed and signed into law. That’s good.
We should remember for instance, that there’s a large caucus in the House of Representatives called the Progressive Caucus. It now has around 80 members and because the Republicans have lost the House, next year there are going to be 12 members of the Progressive Caucus who chair committees of the House and 30 others who control, by being chair, subcommittees of the House that potentially is very powerful in terms of economic and social justice issues. And we found time and again and unfortunately this was the case often during eight years of the Obama administration, that grassroots progressives too often just defer to Democrats who are in Congress – don’t give them a push when they’re dragging their feet; don’t confront them when they come home during a town hall meetings and so forth.
Really the opposite needs to happen. Whether it’s those dozen and 30 chairs of committees and subcommittees I mentioned in the House coming up, or whether it’s any of the more than 200 Democrats in the House of Representatives come next year, we’ve got to be willing to confront and push them because you can bet your bottom dollar that Wall Street and the corporate lobbyists, they’re already pushing those Democrats, as our corporate news media outlets and editorial writers and pundits: “Don’t go too fast, don’t move to the left, defer to the center,” whatever that might mean, which is basically the status quo that so many people reject and that is a challenge ahead. Really, history is going to be made by people at the grassroots depending on what we do and what we don’t do.
