National Journal: A Virginia Democrat Defies the Progressive Base [View all]

[Jose Garcia]

Last edited Wed Oct 25, 2017, 09:13 AM - Edit history (1)

Ralph Northam is leading in the governor’s race because he’s run to the middle, and hasn’t pandered to liberal activists.

Amid all the talk about Ed Gillespie’s exploiting cultural divisions to run competitively in Virginia, many political commentators are missing the big picture in the governor’s race there. Lieutenant governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, is leading in nearly every poll despite running a general-election campaign that has ignored the loudest, most-polarizing voices in his party’s base. He said he wants to work with President Trump when possible despite their many disagreements, he’s ignored environmentalists’ pleas to oppose the construction of a controversial natural-gas pipeline, and he’s called for localities to decide what to do with Confederate statues, instead of mandating their removal.

A former George W. Bush voter, Northam is running as a moderate Democratic pragmatist in the spirit of Bill Clinton—or recently-elected Gov. Roy Cooper, one of the most-prominent Democrats to win during last year’s Trump wave in neighboring North Carolina. And despite all the Democratic angst about the race tightening, his own campaign’s polls have shown him consistently ahead. The average of public polling shows that he’s leading by a healthy 6-point margin.

The real reason you’re hearing so much wailing from Democrats is because they fear that Northam could pave the way for a moderate revival within the party—that a victory would prove that the party’s candidates can win without being held hostage by the increasingly progressive base. In the primary, he handily dispatched former Rep. Tom Perriello, who ran well to his left and won the support of leading liberal activists across the spectrum, from senior Obama officials to socialist-minded senators such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. And since winning the nomination, Northam has resisted calls for his campaign to pander to the grassroots, to the point where they’re leaking unfavorable assessments of his candidacy.

more: https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/659783/virginia-democrat-defies-progressive-base?mref=dashboard-free