GOP’s Georgia challenge: Persuading Trump backers to vote Republican by November
By Chris Hayes
Updated: April 20, 2018, 3:37 p.m.
The results of the 2018 midterm elections for Georgia will be in by the end of this month, which means Republicans are just a week away from having the opportunity to turn out their base in a big way. But they have to persuade their supporters to choose them for president in a general election.
Republicans picked up seats in the U.S. House of Representatives – many of them in districts they had held for decades but just barely – and picked up a few Senate seats. But they lost their control of the U.S. Supreme Court majority and lost six governorships in a row. They’re still in control of the state legislature, but they’ll be running the state, not Washington.
Democrats have the same opportunities but also have to convince their base to get out and vote in a general election election – where they won’t have had a say in the results.
So what’s going to be the key to getting their supporters out to vote in a big way this fall, and for Democrats to win back control of the U.S. House of Representatives?
“There’s no way of knowing whether this is a referendum on Donald Trump or on President Trump,” said Mike Pence, the vice president-elect, during a recent fundraiser at a golf resort off Capitol Hill. “But I hope it will be a referendum on President Trump.”
Democrats need to be able to show they’re more concerned with the future of America than they are with an incumbent president who has lost his base.
Democratic Party
The 2016 election was a referendum on President Obama. It was a referendum on the party that nominated him and the campaign that came out behind him.