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With 27 GOP-controlled governorships up for election in 2018, national Democrats envision the midterm elections as a chance to rebalance the scales at the state level, where there are currently twice as many Republican governors than Democrats.

But already, party leaders are running into a complication unresolved issues left over from the Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders presidential primary. Far from defeated, Sanders-aligned progressives are nationalizing their fight, showing less patience than ever for Democrats who dont agree with them. And thats generating fear and nervousness in the South in places like Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee where some promising Democratic candidates who are looking at running statewide in 2018 could face resistance from the left.

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Heres the challenge in many Southern states now: You have a more liberal primary base, because the more moderate voters are less likely to participate in Southern primaries, so it makes it more dicey. That certainly presents an opportunity for candidates who want to make a point rather than win an election those candidates are less likely to be successful in a general election, said South Carolinas last Democratic governor, Jim Hodges. In Southern states youre going to need candidates who have more moderate stances to be successful."

No Sanders-wing candidates have declared their candidacies yet in these Southern races. But the ambitions of Sanders' post-presidential political operation, Our Revolution and the wake of the Tom Perez-Keith Ellison proxy battle for the DNC chairmanship has establishment-oriented Democrats worried about the prospect of grueling primaries or policy litmus tests in a region where the party can least afford to be divided.

It is critical to recognize that there is a different set of policy issues in the Deep South that are not in play in the coastal areas or the West, said Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, a likely 2018 gubernatorial candidate, pointing to organized labors historic economic centrality in parts of the Midwest, and its relative absence in the South, as an example.

My hope is that Our Revolution or anyone else will understand that purity to a progressive ideal does not [necessarily] mean purity in service of the community, she added.

People close to Sanders political arm insist theres no evidence that the group or its affiliates will try to mount candidate challenges or ideology tests especially not in the Southern states where the senator was squashed by huge margins in the 2016 Democratic primaries, and where his relationship with local leaders has been strained.

After Sanders lost across the South by wide margins from North Carolina by 14 points to Mississippi by 66 in early 2016, party chairs and top regional officials sent him a stern letter asking him to stop minimizing Hillary Clintons wins there by characterizing the South as especially conservative. That dismissal of Southern primary results was viewed as a diminishment of the importance of African-American voters, who make up much of the Southern Democratic electorate.

Among Sanders loyalists, though, theres disbelief and frustration that other Democrats remain wary of their movement, rather than more eager to channel its energy and money.

The party needs to not see the progressive, Bernie wing of the party as a problem, but rather see it as an asset, said Mark Longabaugh, a senior Sanders advisor. The fact that, broadly speaking, candidates and operatives in the establishment wing see the Bernie wing the activist part of the party as a problem? Thats a problem in and of itself."

Georgia state Sen. Vincent Fort, the Our Revolution-backed candidate for Atlanta mayor who made waves during primary season for switching from Clinton to Sanders, said the party establishment still fails to understand or believe in the power of Sanders-style grassroots organizing.

What people have been talking about, they talked about it last year, and the discussion of it this year is increasing, is 2017 and 2018 are part of a whole, that we need a progressive mayor elected in Atlanta in 2017 as a prelude to electing a Democratic governor in 2018, he said. We need a progressive Democrat running in 2018, somebody who understands that trying to be Republican-lite is not a way to get elected. I anticipate this playing out in the primary, I know progressives are going to say, which of the candidates is a real progressive? Which candidate can we depend on to remain progressive?

With Republicans in near-unified control of every governorship and legislature in the South, the region remains little more than an aspirational target for national Democrats. But the emergence of strong potential gubernatorial candidates like Abrams and former state Sen. Jason Carter, President Jimmy Carters grandson, in Georgia, and former Nashville mayor Karl Dean in Tennessee, has spurred hopes that a 2018 snapback election framed as a Trump referendum could sweep out some Republicans associated with him.

Thats also the hope in South Carolina, where GOP Gov. Henry McMaster was one of candidate Trumps loudest early supporters.

I hope all of these [progressive] groups will go out and help recruit candidates, because the hardest job for any party is recruiting candidates: theres no mythical candidate tree where you can go and pick candidates. So they can help fill some of the holes we have, said South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison, who is considering a governor run of his own. Im looking for whos going to be my gubernatorial candidate here in South Carolina: Im looking for someone who can reflect the values of our party and energize our base, but also who can win. So I dont know if there needs to be a litmus test."

In several states, establishment efforts to work with Sanders backers are picking up. Georgia Democratic Party chair DuBose Porter noted his vice chair for recruitment was a Sanders supporter. And candidates such as Floridas Andrew Gillum are openly courting the Sanders wing the Tallahassee mayor is speaking to his states Democratic Progressive Caucus later this month.

No one should be afraid of folks with differing views or differing stances on policy. Were all in the same party, said Tennessee Democratic Party chair Mary Mancini.

These Democrats believe that as Sanders turns his movement toward near-term battles he was in Mississippi for a unionization drive last weekend his supporters firepower can be directed toward 2018.

Our Revolution has expressed interest in having a 50-state strategy, and while their depth of field in the South is weaker than in the coastal areas, any group that can generate additional voters is a benefit to candidates in 2018, said Abrams. There is a specific group of non-engaged midterm voters who I think were animated by Senator Sanders campaign and who could tip the balance, especially in states like Georgia where youre talking about a narrow window of 200,000 voters.

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Governors races test Democrats' rift - Politico

WASHINGTON Running for Congress under even the best circumstances is a grind: Up early for breakfast meetings, on the trail all day and finish with an evening event. The time between your head hitting the pillow and your alarm going off gets squeezed until theres little of it left.Then you get up and do it again.

Doing all that to win is one thing. Doing it just to get wiped out at the polls requires a level of dedication bordering on bonkers.

That means that one of the first questions top potential candidates ask party handlers before making the decision is a simple one: Can I win? If so, show me the numbers.

But a funny thing is happening this time around: Democratic prospects, in conversations with party elders, are skipping that question. Meredith Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that the question of how winnable a race is is often among the top concerns. This year, the energy among Democratic activists has persuaded potential candidates that anything is possible.

So far, this cycle is very different, she said. People are coming to us in a way thats new and exciting, and its clear that we will have strong candidates across an expanded battlefield in 2018.

Finding good candidates has been even easier this year than it was in 2016,bucking a years-long trend.

Despite the fact that presidential cycles tend to benefit Democrats in terms of turnout, recruitment was not easy last cycle, Kelly said. Our political department ultimately recruited a number of strong, successful candidates, but it was only after camping out in districts and going person to person, sometimes for months, until they found someone qualified and interested in running.

It started with the Womens Marchevents in January, when around 4 million peopletook to the streets around the country, for the largest single-day rally in American history. It continued with surging turnout in special elections from Minnesota to Iowa to Virginia, Connecticut and Delaware. It has flowed down to Georgia, where a 30-year-old Democrat, Jon Ossoff, is attempting to take Republican Tom Prices House seat. Ossoff is breaking fundraising recordsthanks to a burst of small-dollar support from around the country. And now in Montana, Rob Quist, a bluegrass legend, has jumped into the race for the Democrats to fill the seat vacated by Ryan Zinke, who, like Price, joined PresidentDonald Trumpscabinet.

Quist has a long history of public service and charitable work and is wildly popular in Montana, but he has never run for office. Trump has changed things. Groups that have exploded since the election, like Swing Left, Flippable and the Sister District Project, are funneling money and volunteer resources from blue districts to where its needed more.

Democrats have been bad at getting out their base in recent midterm elections although history is on their side this time around, since the party in control of the White House traditionally suffers losses in these off-year elections. But with midterm turnout low, the best candidates often take a pass at making a bid. Without good candidates, turnout falls lower, accelerating a vicious cycle.

The Democratic Party is face an uphill climb in the Senate in general, but particularly this year: Democrats are defending 25 of the 34 seats up for grabs. Winning the 218 seats needed to take back the House of Representatives is a daunting task as well, no matter how much energy is in the streets, because Republicans have used their power at the state level to redraw districts to favor them. The fact that Democrats tend to cluster in major cities also plays a role in sorting voters in a way that allows Republicans to claim 55 percent of the seats, even though more people voted for Democrats for Congress.

The Outline

But Republicans cant gerrymander a state and 36 states have governors races in 2018. Those elections will be critical in helping to un-gerrymander the damage that was done after the 2010 census. Nine of those are in currently Republican-governed states that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won in 2016, and at least another half dozen are well within reach. Another nine are currently held by Democrats.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already had more than 175 serious conversations or meetings with potential recruits in more than 55 districts far more than in past cycles. The group said its seeing more interest from veterans, who are concerned about Trumps views on national security and see running for office as a second call to duty.

Theres also been a surge of interest from people who have never run for office and now want to at least explore stepping up to the plate. This trend is happening even in GOP bastions like Utah and South Carolina. When the state party opened up registration for a March candidate training, officials sold out of their 50 tickets in the first day. A week later, the party expanded it to 200 spots and again immediately sold out.

In a wave election, districts that are evenly split swing toward the party that is surging Democrats in 2006 and 2008, then Republicans in 2010 and districts that lean toward the majority party become winnable. In a district which went for Trump by 10 points, its not hard to see how that becomes a tight race under the right circumstances.

Mark Fraley, chairman of the Monroe County, Indiana Democratic Party, said that Democrats on the ground are fired up, and Republicans are checking out. Stephanie Hansen, who won a Delaware special election in February, saw the same thing, moving what was a two point race to an 18 point blowout.

If our people are mobilized and Trump supporters are demoralized, then yes, some of these races that have nine-point Republican advantages start looking close, Fraley said. A lot of Trumps core supporters arent going anywhere, but you start seeing demoralization among working people they voted for Obama twice, then Trump. If were not seeing the changes they hoped to see youll be able to see disengagement on that part.

There are, meanwhile, eight districts that could be easier picking for Democrats. These seats one each in Arizona, New Jersey and Kansas, two in Texas and three in California are all congressional districts that voted for the GOP presidential candidate in both 2008 and then 2012 and then went for Hillary Clinton this past cycle. Theyre also all still represented by GOP House members. It wont be easy, of course. Texass 7th district hasnt elected a Democrat to Congress since 1967.

One of those seats is currently held by veteran congressman Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), an eccentric libertarian-leaning Republican whos been in office nearly 30 years. He faced his toughest challenge in 2008, but still won by some 10 points and hasnt faced a true challenge since. That changed this year, thanks in large part to the endless demonstrations local Democrats have held against Rohrabacher.

Local businessman Harley Rouda, seeing the energy in the streets, decided to jump in and challenge Rohrabacher.

The energy is what motivated me to get in the race, hands down, he said. The Womens March, coupled with the activist movement here ... was the biggest motivation that now is the time for all of us to get involved and be the change we want to see.

It mattered to Rouda that, with the uptick in anti-Trump energy, the race seems winnable.

Ill be straight with you, he said. The fact that midterms dont typically draw voters out ... is tempered by the populist movement weve got going here. Now is the time to tap into that crowd who really want to get engaged and committed to making that difference.

In some rare cases, there may even be too much engagement. California has a top-two primary system, meaning the top two finishers, regardless of party, go on to compete in the general election, even if both are from the same party.

Christy Smith, a progressive school board president in the Los Angeles region, had her eye on Californias 25th congressional district, a seat held tenuously by Republican Stephen Knight, but one carried in 2016 by Clinton. The DCCC in 2016 had backed Bryan Caforio, who raised a lot of money but never connected with voters and lost by six points. With the energy coursing through the district, a campaign began to draft Smithto jump in the race. Hes popular with both supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and those who backed Clinton. Smith gave it a lot of thought, and when first interviewed by The Huffington Post this month, she was undecided. I was riding two horses with one ass, she joked a week later, having finally made up her mind to run for state assembly rather than Congress.

Her reasoning, she said, was two-fold.

California is on the leading edge of whats possible with effective government, she said. To be able to be a part of that could be tremendous and allow me a lot of latitude to really get things done for people in my district and bring resources back.

Strategically, though, it was also the smarter move. With all of this newfound energy, theres not a lot of understanding of strategy with those folks, because theyre new to the game, she said. Theres a broad yall come attitude, with people coming out of the woodwork.

Thats great when it comes to turnout, but California has a top-two system, meaning that the top two finishers in the primary, regardless of party, go on to the general election. If a big batch of Democrats run, then Republicans tend to run only two candidates. That can allow those two candidates to finish one and two, while Democrats split the remainder among themselves. That puts two Republicans on the general election ballot.

We need to be smart if were going to flip this district, she said.

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Anger At Donald Trump Could Break The Democrats' Midterm Curse - Huffington Post

SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 2017, 11:31 A.M.

In this Sept. 9, 2009, photo, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., center, listens during President Barack Obama's speech on health care to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. It took former President Barack Obama and his Democrats more than a year to pass the Affordable Care Act, a slow and painstaking process that allowed plenty of time for a fierce backlash to ignite, undermining the law from the very start. Some congressional Republicans are expressing some amazement at finding themselves, eight years later, undoing the law Democrats forged through those many months of turmoil and debate. Im pleasantly surprised, said Wilson, who gained notoriety for yelling You lie! at Obama during the health care speech in 2009. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / File/Associated Press)

WASHINGTON It took former President Barack Obama and his Democrats more than a year to pass the Affordable Care Act, a slow and painstaking process that allowed plenty of time for a fierce backlash to ignite, undermining the law from the very start.

Republicans are trying to avoid that pitfall as they attempt to fulfill years worth of promises to repeal and replace Obamas law.

After going public with their long-sought bill on Monday, House Republicans swiftly pushed it through two key committees. They hope to pass the legislation in the full House during the week of March 20 before sending it to the Senate and then, they hope, to President Donald Trump all before Congress can take a recess that could allow town hall fury to erupt.

Democrats are crying foul, accusing Republicans of rushing the bill through before the public can figure out what it does. Republicans dispute the criticism, arguing that their legislation enshrines elements of a plan House Republicans worked on for months last year and campaigned on under House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

We offered it up in June. We ran on it all through the election. And now weve translated it into legislation, Ryan said.

Yet after seven years of Republican promises to undo Obamas signature health law and without ever uniting behind a plan to achieve that, the fact that they produced a bill at all came as something of a surprise.

And now, after months of confident predictions that Republicans would not be able to get their act together on health care, Democrats find themselves wondering anxiously whether the GOP could actually succeed in wiping away those arduous months of work from the dawn of the Obama administration.

Nobody believed Republicans had a bill, said the No. 2 House Democrat, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, until Monday night.

Its a far cry from eight years ago, when Democrats held countless hearings and debated at length, in public and private, how to enact the most significant changes to the nations health care system in a generation.

While Republicans are not trying for bipartisan support on their repeal bill, Democrats spent arduous months in the Senate with a bipartisan working group of three Republican and three Democratic senators, known as the Gang of Six, trying to agree on a bipartisan bill. That effort ultimately failed.

The GOP legislation is 123 pages long. The Affordable Care Act rang in at more than 900 pages.

We held hearings and we just spent seemingly endless hours working it over very different from what the Republicans are doing, said Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich.

To be sure, creating an enormous federal program requires more time and effort than jettisoning some pieces of an existing one while replacing others with new, or in some cases retooled, conservative-friendly solutions.

The GOP legislation would eliminate the current mandate that nearly all people in the United States carry insurance or face fines. It would use tax credits to allow consumers to buy health coverage, expand health savings accounts, phase out an expansion of Medicaid and cap that program for the future, end some requirements for health plans under Obamas law, and scrap a number of taxes.

Republicans have proceeded thus far without official estimates on how much the bill will cost or how many people will be covered, though its expected to be millions fewer than under Obamas law. The Congressional Budget Office estimates are expected Monday, and that could affect Republicans chances.

Despite the momentum claimed by GOP leaders and the White House, deep divisions remain in their party. Conservatives argue that the legislation doesnt do enough to uproot the law. Other Republicans express qualms about the impact on Medicaid recipients in their states. Some Republicans accuse Ryan and House GOP leaders of moving too quickly.

We should have an open process, we should allow all of the members to amend legislation, within reason, said GOP Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, a perennial leadership foe.

But Democrats paid a price for their lengthy process, and there was second-guessing even then over the length of time Obama allowed the Senates Gang of Six group to spend in its ultimately fruitless quest. As the months dragged on, public opposition grew. Over Congress August recess in 2009, that rage overflowed at town halls that spawned the tea party movement, which would take back GOP control of the House the next year.

Theres little question that if the GOP process were to drag out for months, especially over a long congressional recess, a similar dynamic could emerge, especially given the consumer and senior groups that have lined up against the legislation and the energized Democratic base already on display at marches and town halls this year.

If Republicans succeed in shoving the bill through this month, such opposition will have less time to make itself known.

Instead, even some congressional Republicans are expressing some amazement at finding themselves, eight years later, undoing the law Democrats forged through those many months of turmoil and debate.

Im pleasantly surprised, said GOP Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, who gained notoriety for yelling You lie! at Obama during a health care speech to Congress in 2009.

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GOP acts fast on health care, aims to avoid ire Democrats faced - The Spokesman-Review

When Attorney General Jeff Sessions called on46 U.S. attorneys appointed by former President Barack Obama to submit their resignations Friday, Democrats and the media howled against the sudden and unexpected move.

What they failed to mention is after each transfer of power, everypresident exercises the right to appoint new candidates to fill the 93 U.S. attorney districts nationwide.Although some U.S. attorneys carry over their appointments from one administration to another, it is a normal processfor new presidents to select their own candidates.

Until the new U.S. attorneys are confirmed, the dedicated career prosecutors in our U.S. attorneys offices will continue the great work of the department in investigating, prosecuting and deterring the most violent offenders.

As was the case in prior transitions, many of the United States attorneys nominated by the previous administration already have left the Department of Justice, Justice Department spokesperson Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement Friday. The attorney general has now asked the remaining 46 presidentially appointed US attorneys to tender their resignations in order to ensure a uniform transition.

Flores added, Until the new U.S. attorneys are confirmed, the dedicated career prosecutors in our U.S. attorneys offices will continue the great work of the department in investigating, prosecuting and deterring the most violent offenders.

The Justice Department noted that President Donald Trump would not accept the resignations of two prosecutors, Dana Boente of Virginia and Rod Rosenstein of Maryland. Boente had served as the acting attorney general prior to Sessions confirmation after Trump dismissed Sally Yates from the position in late January and currently serves as the acting deputy attorney general. Rosenstein, who served as a U.S. attorney under both Bush and Obama, is Trumps pick to serve as deputy attorney general and is still undergoing the confirmation process.

Democratic administrations have followed the same process in handling the turnover of U.S. attorneys.

In 1993, former Attorney General Janet Reno asked everyholdover U.S. attorney appointed by President George H.W. Bush to submit their resignations shortly after former President Bill Clinton took office.

But Democrats many of whom are hyper-sensitive regarding almost every move that Sessions makes are crying foul over the attorney generals decision.

In January, I met with Vice President Pence and White House Counsel Donald McGahn and asked specifically whether all U.S. attorneys would be fired at once, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. Mr. McGahn told me that the transition would be done in an orderly fashion to preserve continuity. Clearly this is not the case. Im very concerned about the effect of this sudden and unexpected decision on federal law enforcement.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) expressed his particular frustration with Sessions decision to include U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of New York in his resignation request. Bharara, one of the most high-profile current U.S. attorneys, is well-known for his aggressive prosecutions of insider trading and public corruption, as The Wall Street Journal noted. Bharara had met with Trump in November to discuss potentially retaining his position.

The President initiated a call to me in November and assured me he wanted Mr. Bharara to continue to serve as U.S. attorney for the Southern District, Schumer said in a statement.

While its true that presidents from both parties made their own choices for U.S. attorney positions across the country, they have always done so in an orderly fashion that doesnt put ongoing investigations at risk, Schumer added. They ask for letters of resignation but the attorneys are allowed to stay on the job until their successor is confirmed.

Senate Democrats vehemently foughtSessions confirmation as attorney general and exhaustively dragged out the process. Since Sessions assumed office they have also looked for every opportunity to undermine their former Senate colleague.

The turnover of U.S. Attorneys will be key to the shift in focusSessions has promised from the Department of Justice. The attorney general has vowed to focus onescalating murder and violent crime cases in cities, while the Obama administration often focused on litigation related to preserve causes and aggressively pursued alleged civil rights abuses at police departments.

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Democrats Suffer Memory Loss on US Attorney Turnover - LifeZette

Democrats, Republicans address...

SPOKANE, Wash. - Education, health care and the environment all hot topics during several Democrat and Republican town hall style meetings in Spokane on Saturday.

More than 200 hundred concerned neighbors and constituents packed into the Washington Cracker Factory building in downtown Spokane Saturday morning, including music teacher, Linda Gower.

"I think politics is so important today because it affects our lives at a local level," said Gower.

Gower said she wants to see education fully funded for her students. In 2012, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled the state has a constitutional obligation to fully fund public K-12 education. This ruling is known as the McCleary decision. Under this ruling, lawmakers must have a plan in place to fully fund education by September 1, 2018.

"The lack of funding- we see it everyday," said Linda Gower. "Nurses, class size," she added.

The House and Senate have both passed plans to fully fund education. But, how education is paid for in our state remains a big debate. Now lawmakers must work together to reach a solution everyone can agree on. Governor Inslee is also proposing $3.9 billion dollars in new funding for K-12 schools.

"The real crux of this issue is whether or not we do this with new revenue, which means new taxes," said Senator Andy Billig (D).

"No body wants addition taxes but sometimes you have to say that is the most responsible way to move forward because without new revenue- it means funding education at the expense of something else," said Billig.

Rep. Jeff Holy (R) and Rep. Mike Volz (R) also hosted a town hall meeting Saturday at the Museum of Arts and Culture.

Rep. Holy said lawmakers need to fund education first.

For every day the state is without a fully funded education system, the Washington State Supreme Court imposes a $100,000 fine- totally more than $57 million so far.

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Democrats, Republicans address concerned constituents at town halls - KXLY Spokane