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Kansas. Montana. Georgia. South Carolina. A string of special election defeats in each state, and with each one, a missed opportunity to take over a Republican House seat, has left Democrats facing the question: Why does the party keep losing elections, and when will that change?

The most obvious reason that Democrats fell short is that the special elections have taken place in conservative strongholds. In each case, Democratic candidates were vying to replace Republicans tapped by the president to serve in his administration, and in districts that Trump won. Despite the unfavorable terrain, Democrats improved on Hillary Clintons margin in every district except in Georgia. But if the party wants to take control of the House in 2018, it needs more than just a strong showing in Republican districts. It needs to win.

Why Ossoff Lost

It is a bit surprising that Democrats havent managed a single victory yet, and havent had more success in turning their anger against the Trump administration into something tangible, said Barry Burden, the director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The party can weather that for a while, but at some point it could become demoralizing.

The special elections are a test case of the policy agendas, messages, and strategy Democrats are putting forward in the hope of winning Republican districts. The fact that candidates fared better than Clinton in races that arent as high-stakes as a presidential election signals that Democratic voters are energized after losing the White House. Despite efforts to rebuild, however, the Democratic Partys national brand remains damaged, and it is still unclear whether the party will coalesce around a core message in the Trump era.

In Montana and Georgia, Republicans worked to make the special elections a referendum on the national Democratic Party by attempting to tie Democratic candidates to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. While party leaders are often targeted during elections, theres reason to believe the national party could be a liability for Democratic candidates in upcoming races. A Washington Post-ABC News poll recently found that most Americans think the Democratic Party is out of touch with the concerns of average voters. Only 30 percent of voters approved of the job Democrats are doing in Congress in a CBS News poll earlier this month, and just 31 percent said Democratic control of Congress would be an improvement over the status quo.

The national brand is toxic, said Democratic Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, who unsuccessfully challenged Pelosi for the title of House minority leader last year, in an interview. Theres just no doubt about it. We are not connecting with people the way we need to connect with them.

On the campaign trail, Democrats worked to distance themselves from the national party. In Montana, Democratic candidate Rob Quist reportedly didnt want Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez to campaign with him, though Perez did campaign for Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff in Georgia and Archie Parnell in South Carolina. Quist instead promised that he would be an independent voice in Washington, while in Kansas, Democratic candidate James Thompson argued that things arent working no matter whos in charge.

Democrats in conservative parts of the country have long tried to prove theyre not typical Washington liberals. But if candidates feel heightened pressure to separate themselves from the national brand amid public skepticism toward the party, voters may be left wondering what it is they represent.

I think voters still dont totally trust Democrats. I think they dont know necessarily what Democrats stand for, and how they differentiate from Republicans, Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who won election in November with the endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders, said in an interview.

In the wake of the partys losses, Democrats are once again rushing to assign blame. There are rumblings among discontented House Democrats that party leaders are the problem. Its time for Nancy Pelosi to go, Democratic Representative Kathleen Rice told CNN after Democrats lost in Georgia and South Carolina on Tuesday. Pelosi pushed back on Thursday, saying that she feels confident in the support that I have and that her leadership is recognized across the country.

Advocacy groups trying to push the party in a more progressive direction seized on the losses to argue that the party needs to put forward a bolder liberal agenda. Democracy for America Chair Jim Dean called Ossoffs message uninspiring, after the Democrat lost in Georgia, adding the same, tired centrist Democratic playbook that has come up short cycle after cycle will not suffice.

The problem for Democrats is that the results of the special elections have not definitively shown what playbook will succeed in capturing Republican seats. Candidates tested out different messages in districts with different demographic profiles, and all of them came up short. In an affluent, well-educated and suburban sixth congressional district in Georgia, Ossoff ran on a platform light on policy specifics, and deployed talking points with a distinctly conservative flavor. He told voters that cutting wasteful spending is not a partisan issue, and promised to ease the tax burden on small businesses.

In districts with a heavy concentration of rural, white-working voters in Montana and Kansas, Quist and Thompson embraced a populist message. Did you know in Congress there are nearly 300 millionaires? Quist asked in one campaign spot. No wonder their so-called health reform was just another tax break for the rich. Thompson campaigned on the idea that trade deals have hurt rural communities, and told voters that the working-class people of this country need people that represent them, and thats what I want to do.

It makes sense that candidates would tailor their messages to the district they run in. But that wasnt enough to win in Georgia, Montana, or Kansas. Further complicating the picture: The Democrat who lost by the narrowest margin did so in a largely rural district, but could hardly be described as a progressive darling. Parnell, a former Goldman Sachs executive, ran as a wonky pragmatist. The Democrat did talk about making big corporations pay their fair share, but during his under-the-radar campaign, he also assured voters that he know[s] how to cut taxes. And he didnt try to make his race about bold ideas. I wont promise you the world, Parnell said in one ad, but Ill work every day to make your life better.

Democrats in conservative parts of the country also seem unsure how to effectively talk about President Trump, even as Republicans have coalesced around an attack on Democrats as inextricably linked to a party of out-of-touch coastal liberals.

Trump's narrow win in Georgia's sixth congressional district last November convinced many Democrats that the special election was the best opportunity to win a House seat and test whether an anti-Trump message could win over Republicans and Independents who might be skeptical of the president. But Ossoff didnt run a staunchly anti-Trump campaign. His campaign launched with a promise to Make Trump furious, but as time went on, Ossoff shied away from blunt criticism of the president. I dont have great personal admiration for the man, he said in an April interview with MSNBC, before adding that theres room to work across the aisle.

Its possible that kind of cautious message is best suited to the long-time Republican district. But Democrats may have missed an opportunity to test out a campaign rooted in blunt criticism of the president.

We dont quite know yet whether an anti-Trump campaign could be successful for Democrats, or not, in districts where Clinton came close to winning, or did win, given that Ossoff didnt really run that kind of a campaign, Burden said.

Democratic candidates competing in districts Trump won by a wide margin also dont seem to have settled on a clear strategy for talking about the president. In races in Montana and Kansas, the Democratic candidates largely avoided talking about Trump, while in South Carolina, Parnell found a middle ground between Trump-bashing and Trump-avoidance by saying he would work with President Trump if I think hes right, and fight him tooth-and-nail if what hes doing hurts the folks back home.

There are silver linings for Democrats in the midst of the special election losses. The fact that Democratic candidates improved on Clintons margins in Kansas, Montana, and South Carolina, and ran a close and competitive race in Georgia, indicates that the party has a chance to make inroads not only in affluent conservative suburbs, but in rural, white-working class parts of the country.

The results of these races really throw cold water on the idea that Democrats are doomed with rural or white-working class voters, Tom Bonier, the CEO of Democratic data firm TargetSmart, said in an interview. That suggests theres opportunity to win back some of the voters we lost in the presidential election.

Losses in 2017 dont mean the party wont compete successfully in 2018. The party out of power in the White House historically gains seats in midterm elections, and a majority of the American public continues to disapprove of the president.

Democratic Representative Ben Ray Lujn, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, attempted to console Democrats in the wake of losses in Georgia and South Carolina by arguing that the House is in play. Democrats have a real shot at taking back the House in 2018, he said in a video message on Wednesday.

There are a number of congressional districts currently held by Republicans that Democrats believe they can contest in the 2018 midterms where the political terrain may prove more favorable than the conservative strongholds where special elections have taken place. Democrats need to win 24 seats held by Republicans to gain control of the House. In a memo earlier this week, the DCCC identified somewhere between 94 and 71 districts as more competitive than Georgias sixth district where Ossoff lost.

If Democrats plan to contest seats in an expansive battlefield, that makes it all the more pressing for candidates to make clear to voters exactly what they will fight for, and what they plan to fight against, in Washington.

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Why Do Democrats Keep Losing in 2017? - The Atlantic

In the late 1960s, some white liberals especially college-age baby boomers began to adopt a secularized version of liberal Protestant values. Yet even then, the Democratic Partys leaders retained a connection to those religious traditions, which allowed them to maintain their appeal to religious voters.

Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy, the partys leading antiwar candidates for the presidential nomination in 1968, were practicing Catholics who found inspiration in the churchs teachings. Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist deacon who regularly taught an adult Sunday school class during his 1976 campaign for president.

Jesse Jackson, who won several primaries in 1984 and 1988, was an ordained minister. Al Gore was a Southern Baptist who had attended divinity school. Bill Clinton had deep roots in the Southern Baptist tradition, despite his troubled relationship with some of the conservative leaders of his denomination during his presidency.

Hillary Clinton frequently cited her Methodist faith as a source of her values. And Barack Obama, despite a secular upbringing, learned to speak in the theological cadences of a Protestant Christian tradition while attending a progressive African-American church in Chicago.

Yet now younger, secular Democrats are attempting to separate their partys progressive values from those religious traditions. Some may belong to a religious tradition or consider themselves to be spiritual people, but they are not able to speak the language of a communally based faith because it does not inform or shape their political views.

This has posed a problem at the polls, because most Democratic voters are not as secular as these activists might assume. While only 47 percent of white, college-educated Democrats identify as Christians, Christianity remains the faith of 81 percent of African-American Democrats and 76 percent of Latino Democrats.

The religious differences between generations are just as stark as the differences between racial groups. While 35 percent of millennials report having no religious affiliation, only 17 percent of baby boomers and fewer than 11 percent of Americans born before 1945 are religiously unaffiliated.

The party is thus split between a minority of young, educated, secular white activists and a larger group of African-Americans, Hispanics and older whites whose political values are closely tied to their faith. No wonder candidates like Mr. Ossoff struggled to connect with key blocs of the Democratic coalition.

And its also no wonder that the Democratic congressional leadership is still dominated by a graying generation of leaders; they are the only ones who can bridge the partys religious divide. The median age of House Democratic representatives is now well over 60 the highest in decades, and several years older than the median Republican age.

All four of Georgias Democratic representatives are 60 or older, and most have deep roots in the African-American Baptist tradition. If Mr. Ossoff had been elected to represent the Sixth District, he would have been over 30 years younger than the next-youngest member of the Georgia Democratic delegation, and he would have represented a very different set of cultural values.

What can Democrats do to bridge the divide between young, secular party activists and the rest of voters? Oddly, last years presidential run by Senator Bernie Sanders, a secular Jew, may suggest a way forward.

Mr. Sanderss non-Christian background may have hurt him in the South; he did poorly among African-American voters, despite his consistent civil rights record. But he did what few other secular candidates have done: He won a sympathetic hearing from conservative evangelicals with a speech that gave a religious grounding for his economic views, complete with biblical citations. When Mr. Sanders spoke at Liberty University, he did not pretend to share evangelical Christians faith, but he showed respect for his audiences religious tradition.

To do the same, secular Democrats need to study the religious language of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. They need to take the time to learn the religious values of their audience. They need to be honest about their own secularity, but acknowledge their debt to the religious traditions that have shaped their progressive ideology.

Only through a willingness to ground their policy proposals in the religious values of prospective voters will they be able to convince people of faith that they are not a threat to their values but are instead an ally in a common cause.

Daniel K. Williams is a professor of history at the University of West Georgia and the author of Gods Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on June 24, 2017, on Page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: The Democrats Religion Problem.

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The Democrats' Religion Problem - New York Times

As offensive as it may sound to today's sensitive ears, it was only 11 years ago that a young and rising United States senator wrote the following about immigration:

"When I see Mexican flags waved at pro-immigration demonstrations, I sometimes feel a flush of patriotic resentment. When I'm forced to use a translator to communicate with the guy fixing my car, I feel a certain frustration."

That senator was Democrat Barack Obama from Illinois.

The quote comes from his 2006 autobiography, "The Audacity of Hope." After getting our attention with that blunt description of his feelings, Obama goes on to argue against following those feelings as some people do, to justify denial of "rights and opportunities" to immigrants who want to become Americans.

I had forgotten about that quote until I ran across it in an important essay posted by liberal analyst Peter Beinart in The Atlantic this past week, as Democrats tried in vain to win a couple of congressional seats in traditionally red districts in Georgia and South Carolina.

Titled "How the Democrats Lost Their Way on Immigration," Beinart's piece describes a Democratic Party trying to recover from President Donald Trump's upset victory, yet too hung up on the culture wars commonly known as "political correctness."

Of course, one could just as easily say the same about the Trump era's Grand Old Party, too gridlocked, so far, by its own internal right-versus-far-right conflicts to pass major legislation, despite its control of both houses of Congress.

Still, Republican gridlock is thin consolation for the Democrats' long losing streak in President Obama's years. His two presidential victories distract us from Democratic losses of more than a thousand state legislative seats and governorships and two-thirds of the country's legislative chambers.

In some ways, I think Beinart is too hard on the Democrats in accounting for such losses. I trace the collapse of compromise on immigration to 2008 when I saw Arizona Sen. John McCain, on his way to winning the GOP presidential nomination, booed at the Conservative Political Action Conference convention for advocating comprehensive immigration reform. He later abandoned that cause, and efforts by both parties to revive it have failed.

Yet, let's give credit where it is due. Republicans were singing the blues in similar fashion when Obama's elections in 2008 and 2012 and other Democratic victories threatened the long-term future of the Republicans as a national party. Instead, grass-roots groups like the tea party movement scored victories at the state and local level that have led to the GOP's current dominance.

Which brings me back to how Obama's quote illustrates to me why he managed to succeed twice at something on which Hillary Clinton failed twice: winning the presidency. His feelings of "patriotic resentment" sound like an honest description of concerns that many people feel. Although today he might be castigated by ideological purists as "racist" or at least committing a "microaggression," it is through expressing such sincerely held feelings that honest dialogue can begin and, one hopes, lead to useful compromise and progress.

In the best of all possible political worlds, candidates from both parties calm such irrational fears by educating voters with real facts, not just alarm. Unfortunately we do not live in that best political world these days. Instead, we are treated to Trump's craven slander of immigrants in the U.S. illegally as an invading tide of "murderers" and "rapists."

Yet, if you don't allow candid discussion of real issues, phony hot-button issues will take center stage. Think of the difference it would have made if Clinton had expressed, as her husband used to say in his 1992 presidential bid, how "I feel your pain."

Today's post-Trump Democrats are divided. One side says they must abandon "identity politics" that appeal to every left-out group but working-class and middle-class whites, who feel left behind by economic and cultural change.

The other side says, no, giving voice to traditionally left-out women and minorities is a core belief and essential to the turnout the party needs to win elections especially when they don't have a big draw like Obama on the ballot.

I think both sides of that debate are right. Democrats have been most successful when they have given voice to bread-and-butter working-class concerns, regardless of race or tribe. They can do it again, if they really want to win.

Clarence Page, a member of the Tribune Editorial Board, blogs at http://www.chicagotribune.com/pagespage.

cpage@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @cptime

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Memo to the Democrats: Don't forget the 'forgotten' - Chicago Tribune - Chicago Tribune

OBAMACARE FAILURE IS ON THE DEMOCRATS

Premium and deductible costs are rising and choice and competition are decreasing. As of now, over 1,200 counties will have only one insurance provider available on the individual market next year, and 35,000 individuals will live in counties with no options available at all. These numbers are expected to increase as insurers finalize their 2018 plans in the upcoming weeks, and yet, Democratic lawmakers have not introduced any major legislation to try and fix the system.

Obamacare Failure Is on the Democrats By Juliana Darrow National Review June 23, 2017

Senate Republicans are planning to vote on their version of the long-awaited health-care replacement bill as early as next week; this is the latest development in the contentious process of dismantling the Affordable Care Act. The unveiling of the Better Care Reconciliation Act sets up another showdown of competing narratives: ACA supporters will accuse Republicans of cutting coverage and reducing benefits and the GOP will point to a flawed system that is losing insurers and forcing double-digit premium increases on families across the country.

This face-off is nothing new. The conversation has played out repeatedly over the past six months. But one thing no one seems to be talking about is that Republicans are the only ones attempting to address the rising costs, declining quality of coverage, and increasing lack of choice in the health-care marketplace.

Democrats seem to be content with the status quo of the Affordable Care Act. Premium and deductible costs are rising and choice and competition are decreasing. As of now, over 1,200 counties will have only one insurance provider available on the individual market next year, and 35,000 individuals will live in counties with no options available at all. These numbers are expected to increase as insurers finalize their 2018 plans in the upcoming weeks, and yet, Democratic lawmakers have not introduced any major legislation to try and fix the system. They have taken the easy way out: showboating and complaining instead of working on a solution to stabilize the health-insurance market.

Republicans should no longer let their colleagues across the aisle get a free pass on the health-care-reform discussion. They cannot assume that just because the ACA is unpopular with their conservative base, replacing it will be a political win for the party. In addition to highlighting the merits of their own bill, Republicans must also continue to show the country that the ACA is a disastrous law, but one that Democrats are nonetheless committed to preserving.

The Democrats refusal to change current law most likely stems from an unwillingness to admit that the ACA has not lived up to its promises. Conservatives predicted eight years ago that a government-heavy health-care system would lead to decreased competition and increased costs. Democrats should not let embarrassment that those predictions came true prevent real solutions and lasting reform.

Read the full article here.

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National Review: Obamacare Failure Is on the Democrats - The White House (blog)

The Washington Post's national security reporters unveil the deep divisions inside the Obama White House over how to respond to Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. (Whitney Leaming,Osman Malik/The Washington Post)

Today, Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima and Adam Entous have a blockbuster behind-the-scenes story about how the Obama administration handled the Russian effort to manipulate the 2016 presidential election, one that is both shocking and maddening. Reading it, one cant avoid the conclusion that if it had happened during a Republican administration, things would have gone very differently.

What comes through again and again is that the Obama administration was terrified of looking partisan or doing anything that might seem like it was putting a thumb on the scale of the election, and the result was paralysis. This is a manifestation of what some years ago I began calling the Audacity Gap.

Democrats are forever worried about whether they might be criticized, whether Republicans will be mean to them, whether they might look as though theyre being partisan, and whether they might be subjected to a round of stern editorials. Republicans, on the other hand, just dont care. What theyre worried about is winning, and they dont let the kinds of criticism that frightens Democrats impede them. It makes Republicans the party of Yes we can, while Democrats are the party of Maybe we shouldnt.

So as the full scope of the Russian assault on the American election became clear, two things happened again and again. First, whenever the Obama administration would approach Republicans to try to issue some kind of bipartisan condemnation or coordinate efforts to minimize the effects of the attack, the GOP response was essentially, To hell with you, Democrats, after which the administration would slink back and do little or nothing. And second, even when they were deliberating on their own, the administration kept pulling back from responses it might take out of fear that someone might call them partisan.

Lets remember that the scope of Russian interference came into focus last summer. In June, it first became public that the Russians had infiltrated the systems of the Democratic National Committee. In July, during the Democratic convention, Wikileaks released internal DNC emails and those of John Podesta, who was chairing Hillary Clintons campaign, in an attempt to embarrass them and sow division within the Democratic Party (which turned out to be highly successful). In August, the intelligence services determined that there was a coordinated attack underway and that it was likely being directed by Vladimir Putin himself.

Apart from the creation and dissemination of a flood of phony anti-Clinton propaganda, administration officials were concerned that Russian hackers might try to directly affect voting systems, which we later learned they did in fact do. But when Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson attempted to do something about it, he got a partisan reaction:

On Aug. 15, Johnson arranged a conference call with dozens of state officials, hoping to enlist their support [for shoring up the security of their systems]. He ran into a wall of resistance.

The reaction ranged from neutral to negative, Johnson said in congressional testimony Wednesday.

Brian Kemp, the Republican secretary of state of Georgia, used the call to denounce Johnsons proposal as an assault on state rights. I think it was a politically calculated move by the previous administration, Kemp said in a recent interview, adding that he remains unconvinced that Russia waged a campaign to disrupt the 2016 race. I dont necessarily believe that, he said.

The same thing happened from Republicans in Congress: The administration sought a bipartisan response, and Republicans shut it down.

In early September, Johnson, [FBI Director] James Comey and [White House homeland security adviser Lisa] Monaco arrived on Capitol Hill in a caravan of black SUVs for a meeting with 12 key members of Congress, including the leadership of both parties.

The meeting devolved into a partisan squabble.

The Dems were, Hey, we have to tell the public, recalled one participant. But Republicans resisted, arguing that to warn the public that the election was under attack would further Russias aim of sapping confidence in the system.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) went further, officials said, voicing skepticism that the underlying intelligence truly supported the White Houses claims. Through a spokeswoman, McConnell declined to comment, citing the secrecy of that meeting.

Key Democrats were stunned by the GOP response and exasperated that the White House seemed willing to let Republican opposition block any pre-election move.

And as Miller, Nakashima and Entous reported in a previous article, the always-shrewd McConnell knew exactly what button he had to push to get the administration to back off:

According to several officials, McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.

In other words, Republicans acted like partisans, and successfully rolled over Democrats who didnt want to seem like partisans. Within weeks, the administration decided not to take any action against Moscow before the election. They feared that any action would be seen as political and that Putin, motivated by a seething resentment of Clinton, was prepared to go beyond fake news and email dumps.

Now lets fast-forward to after the election is over. Perhaps the most head-spinning part of this report concerns a proposal to form a bipartisan commission to investigate Russian interference in the election:

But as soon as [White House chief of staff Denis] McDonough introduced the proposal for a commission, he began criticizing it, arguing that it would be perceived as partisan and almost certainly blocked by Congress.

Obama then echoed McDonoughs critique, effectively killing any chance that a Russia commission would be formed.

The election was already over, and they were still worried that something as obviously necessary as a bipartisan commission would be perceived as partisan. Savor that one for a moment.

There are some excuses you can come up with for the Obama administrations hesitance to act decisively against this threat, both in terms of publicizing it and in retaliating against Russia. It was concerned about setting off an escalating conflict with Russia, and its actions were colored by its assumption that Clinton would win, which was of course the assumption held by nearly everyone, Republican or Democrat. But imagine what would have happened if there were a Republican administration in office, and Russia mounted a full-scale assault on our election with the obvious intent of hamstringing the future Republican president (at a minimum) or getting the Democrat elected. Could anyone who knows anything about todays GOP actually believe it would have been so tentative?

Not on your life. Every Republican in Washington from the president on down would have been on TV every day saying that the Democratic nominee was a Russian stooge. They would have undertaken a comprehensive package of retaliatory measures immediately, not waiting until after the election was over. They would have talked about nothing else for months.

Thats not because they would have seen it as a profound threat to American sovereignty. We know that, because they dont care about that threat right now, as real as it is. Heck, the Republican nominee for president not only didnt condemn the Russian assault, he celebrated it. Donald Trump gleefully brought up Wikileaks 164 times on the campaign trail and publicly implored Russia to hack into his opponents email to see if any damaging information might be found there. Republicans have steadfastly resisted any investigation into what happened in the 2016 election.

No, they would have seen it as a threat to their own partisan interests, and responded with the same ferocity that they bring to all partisan conflicts. They wouldnt have worried about being criticized or being called partisan; they would have fought.

And in that case, it would have been the right thing to do. Instead, Vladimir Putin got just about everything he wanted: a destabilized, delegitimized, demoralized American system, and the election of a president whose advisers are tied up in an intricate web of connections to Russia and who is himself bizarrely solicitous of Putins needs and wants.

Theres no way to know whether the election might have turned out differently if the Obama administration had reacted more aggressively to the Russian assault. What we do know is that once again, Democrats were paralyzed by their worries about how things might look. Its not something Republicans ever concern themselves with and all you have to do is look at whos in charge in Washington to see the results.

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How Democratic timidity may have helped Trump get elected - Washington Post (blog)