Democrats salute week that saw emergence of an anti-Trump coalition

‘Energy and anger’ shifting from Republicans amid high turnout, analysts say, as Republican pollster acknowledges challenges ahead for party

Democratic victories in elections across the US this week showed the first concrete evidence of an emerging anti-Donald Trump coalition, analysts said.

Sweeping wins in Virginia and surprise gains in state legislative races – seen by many as a referendum on the president – have boosted Democratic hopes of even bigger wins in next year’s midterm elections.

Bill Galston, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution governance studies programme, said: “The thing I found most striking was the enormous increase in turnout, particularly on the Democratic side.

“What that suggests is the energy and anger have shifted from the Republican side, where it has been located for a series of elections, to the Democratic side. Trump succeeded in mobilising his support before he succeeded in mobilising his detractors. He’s now reached phase two.”

For the first time, there is a tangible measure of an anti-Trump coalition.

“It’s a negative coalition at this point,” Galston added. “Anger, fear, concern are bringing his adversaries together in the same way that antipathy to Barack Obama brought his adversaries together.

“Republicans found they could get so far as the party of no. It all came out in the wash: they were the proverbial dog that caught the car and it’s been a rocky first year. The fight over what the Democratic party is for will be on hold until after the midterms.”

In some quarters, Tuesday’s results were called “the revenge of the suburbs”, as university-educated voters joined women and minorities in finding an outlet for their frustration against Trump, backing a new slate of female, African American and transgender Democrats.

Galston said: “We know how minorities are going to vote. We know how whites with a lower education level are going to vote. The swing element in American politics is the mainly white college-educated. It’s a bit of a simplification to say the white middle-class suburbs are the new battleground, but that’s the heart of it.”

Democrats are now in a strong position for the midterms, Galston said. “It’s a foregone conclusion that Democrats will gain considerable ground in the House of Representatives. It’s not clear whether that will be enough to take control. If the elections were held tomorrow, the Democrats would take over the House – I’m quite confident of that.”

The elections were widely interpreted as a resounding verdict on the Trump presidency. Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster at North Star Opinion Research, said: “It’s hard to interpret the result any other way.

“The fact is it was not a lack of turnout among lethargic Republicans: Ed Gillespie got 17% more than the last Republican in the Virginia gubernatorial election. But you had a massive turnout of the people Donald Trump has spent his presidency attacking.

“It’s a continuation of the very clear pattern of 2016. Republicans traded large, upscale, more diverse counties for smaller, low-scale, slow-growing, less diverse communities. This is not a foundation for long-term electoral success.”

There had been signs of momentum earlier this year in special elections in Georgia and elsewhere, as Democrats performed better than they typically would in Republican strongholds.

“The wind is going to be blowing in the face of Republicans” in the midterms, Ayres said. “That’s not say they can’t hold the Senate and House with a good campaign and record.”

‘Homogenising against Trump’

The women’s march in Washington dwarfed Trump’s inauguration crowd in January and there has been no shortage of anti-Trump satire from late-night TV hosts and wags on social media. But this week demonstrated that such sentiment could be channeled to the ballot box.

Democrats won the governors’ offices in Virginia and New Jersey, smashed a dominant Republican majority in the Virginia house of delegates and won a special election that gave them control of the Washington state senate. They have gained at least 30 seats since Trump won the White House a year ago, ending years of Republican momentum.

Jennifer Carroll Foy, an African American woman who won a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates, told MSNBC on Friday: “It really started with the election from last year. I just remember these feelings of fear and anxiety and helplessness and hopelessness.

“I knew there needed to be a counterbalance, there needed to be a response to Trump and Trump-style politics, because he was just inserting so much misogyny and racism and bigotry. He ran on that platform and inserting that into our community. I knew we needed a response to that, someone who would be an advocate and say there are other options. There’s the Democratic option, which is the best option.”

Dan Cassino, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey, said: “The Democrats are homogenising against Trump. There were definitely Democrats who were not excited by Hillary Clinton, but we’re now seeing a Democratic party more united than the Republican party is. That’s a reversal of the last 30 years.

“We also see a reversal of voting turnout. Democrats were always less likely to vote. This time Republicans stayed home. Democrats are angry and motivated; Republicans are fractured. If these trends keep up for the midterms, it will be a wipeout.”

The contrasting enthusiasm translates to candidates, Cassino added. “In New Jersey, candidate recruitment for Democrats is off the charts. On the other hand, a lot of Republicans are retiring. Democrats are coming out of the woodwork to run in 2018. Republicans are staying put and will wait for 2020 or 2022.”

Democrats still face a tall order. While Trump’s pariah status in the suburbs might swing the House, the vast majority of Senate seats at stake are in conservative rural states, where the president still commands a deep well of support.

Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, struck a note of caution.

“The reaction of Democrats with elation says more about Democrats than 2018,” he said. “I don’t think it was a wave election or a confirmation of doom for Republicans.

“I think Democrats are so demoralised after 2016 that any kind of good news produces elation, but it feels quite strained and forced. There was a rush of over-interpreting. These are not bellwether areas. The headline would have been if Democrats did not do well.”

Jacobs added: “The expectation of this repudiation of Trump is overstated: we haven’t seen that. What’s going to happen in Ohio and in some the battleground states? Trump’s approval ratings are low but Democrats have their own disarray. Their most prominent figure, Bernie Sanders, is not even a Democrat. There is tremendous dissent and division. I don’t see grounds for breaking open the champagne in 2018.”

Shaun Bowler, a political science professor at the University of California, Riverside, said: “There have been these grass roots mobilizations all year. The question all along is whether these organisations can be translated into electoral victories. And the jury is still out a little on that.

“The Democrats seem to think that harping on Trump’s personality will win them elections. I think most voters have a pretty good sense of Trump by now – they would like some policies that speak to their concerns.”