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Democrats are savoring a moral victory despite coming up short in the special election to represent the 4th Congressional District of Kansas. A district that five months ago gave Donald Trump a 27-point blowout gave Republican Ron Estes a merely respectable 7-percentage point margin over Democrat James Thompson.

The president tweeted this morning: Great win in Kansas last night for Ron Estes, easily winning the Congressional race against the Dems, who spent heavily & predicted victory! Almost none of that was true: Democrats spent next to nothing to help Thompson, and it was Republicans who raced in at the last minute with emergency cash for Estes. The question now is whether Thompsons surprisingly strong showing in one of the most reliably Republican districts in the country means anything for the elections yet to come.

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With Trumps presidential approval languishing in the upper 30s to low 40s, Democrats are certainly hoping that his misfortunes are building a blue wave for 2018. There are over 100 Republicans sitting in districts that wouldn't have been heavily GOP enough to overcome the D swing we saw in KS tonight, Democratic data specialist Tom Bonier observed on Twitter.

But it is far from certain that were going to see a 20-point swing toward the Democrats in every precinct in every state across the country, whether its for the upcoming special House elections for what were Republican-held seats in Georgia, Montana and South Carolina, or in the 2018 midterm elections.

Two big questions remain. Was this race just another fluky special election that will not be easily replicated? And did Thompson in defeat give Democrats a road map for a winning strategy in 2018?

Special elections are often low-turnout affairs marked by local quirks, which can lead to aberrations in voting patterns. And the biggest quirk in Kansas was the Republican deadweight of its governor, Sam Brownback.

Brownbacks deep tax cuts had led to unpopular spending cuts in education, driving his approval down to a rock bottom 27 percent. Estes was tied to Brownbacks administration as state treasurer, and Thompson whose internal polling showed Trump retaining majority approval in the district mainly trained his fire on Brownback. In fact, Thompson credited Trump and his last-minute robocall endorsement with dragging Estes over the finish line: I probably shouldn't say this, but Mr. Estes didn't beat us. It took the president of the United States.

Still, its difficult to fully separate whats happening in Washington from a congressional election, and whats happening is a Republican meltdown. And that may be sapping enthusiasm among GOP voters nationwide.

Before last night, there was some evidence of depleted Republican energy in other special elections. As the New York Times Nate Cohn reported last week, Republicans suffered a 5-point turnout drop in a Delaware state legislative race. And in the early vote for Georgias 6th Congressional District, he wrote, [Democratic] turnout is running about twice as high as it did at this point in 2014, while Republican turnout is about half what it was. These are hopeful signs for Democrats, but they are only wisps of data.

Whether it was the troubles of Trump, Brownback or a combination of the twoor just the usual pattern of special electionsRepublican turnout plummeted on Tuesday. Based on the unofficial results, Estes suffered a 62 percent drop in votes compared to the Republican candidate in 2016, while Thompsons Democratic decline was only 32 percent.

Another Brownback wont be hovering over the next round of special congressional elections. Georgias Republican governor, Nathan Deal, is riding high with 63 percent approval, and Montanas Democratic governor, Steve Bullock, has a solid 59 percent. South Carolinas governor, Henry McMaster, has barely begun his tenure.

Without the aid of a gubernatorial albatross, and with uncertainty over how much Republican voters have soured on Trump, Democrats will need a potent national message that resonates in red America. And in the wake of Bernie Sanders improbable campaign, many progressives are pushing Democrats to adopt his populist platform and style to paint those working-class conservative districts blue. Did Thompsons valiant effort make that case?

Sanders acolytes saw a kindred spirit in Thompson, but he stopped short of embracing the entirety of the Vermont senators platform. For example, he said of Bernies signature health care proposal, I like the idea of single payer, [but] I don't see it getting accomplished in our current political environment.

But he campaigned with Sanders, credited him giving him the inspiration to run and relentlessly used Sanders frame of fighting for the working class. Thompson was also unabashedly liberal on combating climate change, protecting LGBT rights and providing undocumented immigrants with pathways to citizenship, though he mixed in support for the right to bear arms.

[Thompson] felt he had already won reported The Huffington Post, because he had shown that Democrats could make a Republican district competitive by running on an unapologetically progressive platform. True enough. Thompsons gun-toting progressive populism was a marked improvement over last Novembers blowout. But Michael Dukakis was an improvement over Walter Mondale; it didnt mean Democrats should run as diminutive technocrats.

The hypothesis that a progressive economic populism can fully flip a white working-class district from red to blue remains unproven, especially when confronting a competing right-wing populism that intertwines protectionism with promises of deportation and environmental deregulation. In fact, Thompsons populist pitch hit a wall similar to the one Hillary Clintons pragmatist campaign did. The only part of the Kansas district that Thompson won outright was urban Wichita; he failed to make a significant dent in the surrounding rural areas.

Meanwhile, the Democratic hope in Georgias 6th Congressional District, the buttoned-down Jon Ossoff, is running a campaign thats more pointedly anti-Trump and more ideologically moderate than the one we saw from Thompson. A recent ad shows Ossoff silently tweeting that we should fix Obamacare, NOT repeal it as well as cut wasteful spending and, instead of pining for the jobs of the past, attract more high-tech jobs. He ends by tweeting, Ill stand up to Donald Trump he should act like a president.

Georgia 6th does not resemble Kansas 4th in the slightest. The district is not economically hard hit. It includes affluent Atlanta suburbs and more than half the voters are college graduates. Trump barely edged Clinton there in November. A pitchfork populism would not be the right fit for the district. A poll from Atlantas 11Alive News found Ossoffs current lead is based on young, educated and affluent voters who like his talk of high-tech jobs and economic development.

But just as Thompsons strategy cant be easily adopted by Ossoff, Ossoffs upscale centrist message doesnt provide much guidance to Montana Democrat Rob Quist. An Ossoff upset wouldnt mean the country-singing Berniecrat should ditch his cowboy hat and tack rightward to win his statewide special election next month. The Big Sky state has a long history of Democrats successfully running as prairie populists, including Sen. Jon Tester, as well as the current governor, Bullock, and his predecessor, Brian Schweitzer. Quist is sensibly following their well-worn path. Ossoffs performance also cant tell Quist whether or not he should focus on skewering Trumps conduct in office, since Trump won Montana by 20 points and likely still holds majority support.

Such is the Democratic challenge in building a blue wave. As the Clinton campaign learned the hard way, what works in the college-educated suburbs is not what works in the working-class manufacturing hubs and farm towns. The close Kansas contest may give Democrats a morale boost, but they have yet to solve the biggest political puzzle of all: a message that transcends Americas entrenched political, economic and cultural divides.

Bill Scher is a contributing editor to Politico Magazine, and co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show The DMZ.

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What Kansas Didn't Do for Democrats - POLITICO Magazine

WINCHESTER, Va. - If Mudcat Saunders were running things, he would never have approached bringing his beloved Democratic Party together by uninviting one faction of the divided party.

"Well, that would not have been my tactics. If your party is divided, well how do you bring it together if you don't invite all sides?" he asks, confounded by the decision.

But that is exactly what they did to Saunders, a legendary Democratic operative with a deep Southern drawl, a commanding presence, and a fierce loyalty to his party, despite its sharp turn left beginning along the fringes with Al Gore.

Saunders is the Democrats' outspoken liaison between rural voters and progressive candidates who helps them soften their message to longtime Democrats who still like God and guns and find themselves in a church pew every Sunday. He was unceremoniously uninvited to the very event that was supposed to bring rural and progressive Democrats together ahead of the governor's race this year.

He said: "Like I said, not exactly the way I would have approached it. I think every voice needs to be heard. We are losing rural Democrat support and I think we really need that for this governor's race in order to win."

In short, Democrats believe that because of their populous numbers in the urban suburbs in Northern Virginia, they don't need rural voters. And they aren't showing any willingness to petition, engage with them, or win them over.

The party's beef with Saunders involves his unwillingness to vote for Hillary Clinton last year. It doesn't help that he was pretty outspoken about it.

"They don't have to. And this is why we are the minority party," said Dane Strother, a Washington, D.C.-based Democratic strategist with deep Southern roots. "If we remain uninterested in the rural vote we will remain the minority party."

Virginia Democrats are in the midst of a civil war that is only getting worse since the election of Donald J. Trump. Virginia did not go for Trump, but its rural voters, a decent amount of them Democrats, voted decisively for Trump over their party's nominee.

That civil war has escalated as the Democratic primary race for governor moves front and center. Candidates Ralph Northam, an Eastern Shore native, and Tom Perriello, who once represented the Fifth Congressional District, both come from rural Virginia.

Mudcat supports Northam. He said: "Perriello used to be pro-life, now he's not. Perriello used to be pro-gun, now he is not. He is running away from the moderate Democrats and right into the arms of the left of the party and it's disappointing."

Earlier this month, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the de facto leader of the Democratic Party's progressive wing since he effectively harnessed the energy of the party's far left during last year's primary contest with Clinton, endorsed the former congressman in the governor's race.

The former Blue Dog-like Democrat came into the House majority one cycle after the wave of moderate Democrats swept Republicans into the minority.

Northam is the current lieutenant governor of Virginia, a position elected separately from the governor's office. He is moderate, populist, and liked by the state's Democratic Party. He also voted for George W. Bush for president - twice.

One of these guys will soon be the Democratic nominee for governor in Virginia, said Strother: "It is one of only two states, New Jersey is the other, that hold governor's races this year, I think this contest in a purple state will show us the direction my party is going. Will they go full progressive? Will they include blue-collar and working-class rural Democrats in a message that they can rally around? I sure hope so, or we are in a world of hurt."

Strother said the decision in Roanoke to disinvite Mudcat from the recent conference on recruiting rural voters and addressing cultural challenges was a "stupid" one: "This is a defining race for us. We have to have a developed, authentic message that reaches these voters and stop alienating them or we will remain in the wilderness."

Here in the Shenandoah Valley, those exact types of voters are turned off by progressive politics in the state, which has gone blue three presidential elections in a row. Those numbers for Democrats have softened in those cycles, not hardened.

The story to watch first is: Where do Democrats go in their primary race this summer? Do they continue to push out moderate voices like Mudcat? Do they find a way to bring them in with a message that appeals to all? Or do they march leftward? And, if so, does that march keep them in the wilderness, or do they find victory in the fall?

It is certainly the race to watch. Why? Well, because the Democrats need the Mudcats of this world in their party - not just here but across the country - and they need to let them have a voice. If not, they risk remaining the minority party up and down the ballot.

Salena Zito is a CNN political analyst, and a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner. For more information, visit http://www.creators.com.

Published: April 12, 2017 10:44 AM EDT The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Virginia's progressive Democrats push moderates aside - Philly.com

Reporter: Dems Trying To Cuss Their Way Back to Power

Democrats seem to be taking a page from President Trumps often-earthy language and are letting loose four-letter words in public speeches and interviews, notes McClatchys Alex Roarty. So much for the old maxim that politicians campaign in poetry but govern in prose. Democratic Chairman Tom Perez has charged that Republicans dont give a s about people. And New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said that if Democrats cant help people, we should go the f home. Perez, in fact, has repeated his foul-mouthed criticism of Republicans in interviews and statements since, making it something of a catchphrase. Apparently, last years surge in [voter] anger has left many Democrats racing to catch up, hoping to prove they feel the same visceral disgust. Conservative take: New York AGs Enviro Activist Pal

Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer appears to be the new owner of the New York State Attorney Generals office, charges Drew Johnson at The Hill, asking what it took to make AG Eric Schneiderman a pawn in his plan to vilify ExxonMobil and ramp up global warming hysteria. Apparently, he says, it was the prospect of campaign contributions, since public records show the AG launched a climate change investigation targeting ExxonMobil while he was urging Steyer to help fund a possible gubernatorial run. And as the probe expanded, Steyer began pouring money into rallies supporting Schneiderman and his fellow AGs through his political action committee, NextGen Climate Action. In other words, Steyers fingerprints are all over the ExxonMobil investigations.

From the right: Did Assad Just Use Saddams WMDs?

Eliminating Saddam Husseins stockpile of weapons of mass destruction was a major justification for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, recalls Mark Hemingway at The Weekly Standard, but they were nowhere to be found. A popular theory at the time proposed by, among others, James Clapper, who went on to become Barack Obamas director of national intelligence is that they were smuggled into Syria. Indeed, Clapper cited a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria just before the invasion. So it might be time to reassess whether the intelligence that Iraq had WMD was as faulty as we thought. Especially since we now know that the Obama administration was knowingly spreading falsehoods about removing chemical weapons from Syria. From the left: All-Out Resistance Wont Stop Trump

Ever since Trumps election, observes John Judis at The New Republica, the consensus view on the left has been to demand full-on resistance to everything this president does. They argue that its not merely a moral imperative: Its also the smartest way for Democrats to stage a comeback, citing how Mitch McConnell and the GOP opposed President Barack Obama. But, Judis notes, McConnell was too crafty for total resistance and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democrats should be, too. GOP opposition was actually quite selective, focusing mainly on health care and the stimulus, because McConnell knew that total obstruction was a dead end. To regain voters trust as the party that cares about ordinary Americans, they shouldnt follow the path of all-out resistance but of the smartest resistance.

Liberal take: The Millennial Lefts Rude Awakening

The millennial left has had to deal with some uncomfortable truths since Trumps election, notes Erin Gloria Ryan at The Daily Beast. But one of the more unmooring is that when it comes to issues like immigration and foreign relations, many of the actions that President Obama took, and many of the actions that President Hillary Clinton would have taken, are not necessarily in line with what they think those candidates values are. Many on the left were disturbed by Trump ordering an airstrike against Syria. But then Clinton supported the attack. And the similarity in their stances presents an important truth that people who consider themselves left-leaning should consider: that what young people on the left think their leaders are isnt necessarily in line with reality.

Compiled by Eric Fettmann

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Democrats' foul-mouthed strategy and other comments - New York Post

DNC chair will speak at SC Democrats' fundraising dinner The State (blog) The head of the Democratic National Committee will give the keynote address at S.C. Democrats' annual fundraising dinner. DNC chairman Tom Perez will speak at the April 28 Blue Palmetto Dinner in Columbia. The dinner will be at the Medallion ...

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DNC chair will speak at SC Democrats' fundraising dinner - The State (blog)

All around the country, Democrats interested in running for office are crawling out of the woodwork.But how many of these potential candidates will turn into serious congressional candidates?

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already talked to 275people in 68 districts wanting to run 20 peoplein one Illinois district alone.

Groups interested in more than just congressional races have received even more knocks on the door. Since the election, more than 10,000 women have reached out to EMILYs List about running for all levels of office. (By contrast, 1,000 women contacted the group during the two-year 2016 cycle.)

Democrats say theyve never seen this level of interest from this many potential candidates this early in the off-year of a midterm election cycle. Many chalk it up to the surprise election of President Donald Trump.

For a party that took a beating at the ballot box last fall, the emergence of fresh blood, much of it in red House districts, is both salve for last years wounds and a source of inspiration for 2018.

Harnessing that enthusiasm is the job of lawmakers and political consultants. In many cases, the appeal of these potential candidates is that they havent run for office before or dont have much political experience. But that also means the wake-up calls about what it really takes to run a competitive congressional campaign will be more shocking.

Im very candid about it, said Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, whod made 10 recruitment calls the previous weekend to people all around the country interested in running.

The former vice chairwoman of recruitment for the DCCC, Bustos has piloted a boot campto train Democratsin her district to run for office thatthe DCCC is now trying to replicate across the country.

The worst thing you can do is to have someone make a decision to run, and then all the sudden, theyre like, Oh, I didnt know I had to spend this kind of time making phone calls to make sure I have resources to win this race,said the three-term congresswoman, whos made female recruitment her passion.

Other members have their own priorities. Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, for example, is deeply involved with recruiting veterans. On Tuesday of this week alone, three veterans announced their campaignsfor Congress in three different districts. Theres also an increased effort to recruit small business owners and scientists.

Potential candidates, even if they havent run before, know 2018 could be a good year for Democrats, who need to gain 24 seats to retake the House. Theyve heard the statistics about the party out of the White House making gains in midterms.

And Trump adds a whole new level, said North Carolina Democratic consultant Morgan Jackson. Theyre fired up.

Thats not enough, though. Its easy to get excited about running for Congress. Anybody can make a decision with that info to do it, Jackson said.

But then a consultant like Jackson has to tell them about the hours of time theyll have to invest in making fundraising calls.

Show them the hard part and then if the excitement is still there, youre good to move forward, hesaid.

Fundraising is a significant and daunting part of running.

No one is expected to be able to map out how theyre going to raise $1.5 million, said Pennsylvania-based consultant J.J. Balaban. But if they cant at least chart a rough course to six-figures, Congress might not be the right office for them.

EMILYs List knows that many of the 10,000 women who have approached them this winter wont run for Congress or even for any office this cycle. But the abortion rights group is excited about building a bench for the future.

And with redistricting at play soon, some liberalsbelieve its even more important to channel Democratic enthusiasm toward the state level.

Even if people interested in running for Congress drop down to running for lower office, Democrats think theres enough enthusiasm from enough people to portend a strong recruitment year for the 2018 House map.

Three Democrats, two of whom teach at the same law school, are already in the race against California Rep.Mimi Walters, a Republican who won re-election by 17 points last fall.

That kind of early campaign launch is changing the political dynamic on the Democratic side.

For one thing, its keeping consultants busier.

I have a lot more miles on my American Airlines card so far this year, said Democratic consultant Achim Bergmann.

With multiple candidates in the same districts, consultants are having to vet potential clients the same way the campaign committees would evaluate them as prospectivecandidates.

Thats a trend Republicans are familiar with.

Business is usually better after a bad year, one North Carolina GOP consultant said, suggesting Democrats are smart to field candidates in red districtsin case theres a midterm wave.

In North Carolina alone, Democrats expect to fieldcompetitive challengers toRepublican Reps. Robert Pittenger, Ted Budd, George Holding, Richard Hudson and Walter B. Jones. Trump carriedthose districts by anywhere from 9 to 24 points.

Jackson, the Democratic consultant, remembers seeing the same phenomenon only in reverse in the 1994 cycle, when Republicans ran for offices that Democrats had had on lockdown. Suddenly, even Democrats who had run unopposed in 1992 had serious challengers.

If theres a downside for Democratsfromthe heightened interest in running, its that therell be more primaries.

Bustos and her colleagues in the Illinois delegation gathered for dinner earlier this month to discuss how, with so many potential candidates, theyd land the best candidates in tough districts. Theyve decide to take a wait-and-see approach to watch who puts in the time and surrounds themselves with good teams.

Clearing the field is going to be a more difficult endeavor, said Balaban, the Pennsylvania consultant.

Primaries can help strengthen a candidate before a general election fight, but they can also drain money, and depending on how nasty they are, can even damage a candidates reputation.

But thats why Democrats are impressed that some of these strong, first-time candidates are getting in so early.

Even though maybe the bio of the newcomer could make a better general election candidate, they often dont succeed in the primary because they get in too late, Jackson said.

Hes hoping that wont be an issue this cycle.

Ive really been surprised by the number of people who are seriously talking about raising money more than a year before primary, hesaid.

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With Enthusiasm High, Democrats School Potential Candidates on Realities of Running - Roll Call