Virginia Republican rejects Trump, votes Democratic down the line: Mastio & Lawrence
David: Democrats blew out Republicans in Virginia on Tuesday. They did it with my vote, and it made me sick.
I’ve been a Republican voter all my life. Sure, from time to time, I’ve voted for a moderate Democrat over a flawed Republican or voted libertarian when neither party was a good choice, but in the voting booth I have always been on the GOP team.
Not yesterday. I picked up the Democratic sample ballot and voted down the line with the party I oppose. Even for “soil and water conservation director.”
When I did, I had the same nauseated reaction as when I went to court for a divorce. My hope was that a clear rejection of Republicans would deliver the message that President Donald Trump was poison to GOP electoral prospects in 2020. My hope was that Republican House members and senators tempted to vote in lockstep with Trump on impeachment would think twice, if not for principled reasons, then for crass personal political reasons.
Looking across the nation, we failed to deliver that message. True, unpopular Republican Gov. Matt Bevin appears to have narrowly lost in Kentucky, but the GOP swept the rest of the statewide races. And in Mississippi, Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves comfortably topped his Democratic opponent in the governor’s race.
Jill: I appreciate how difficult this election must have been for you, but I see your decision and Bevin’s struggle as a sign that all is not lost. Trump won Kentucky by 30 points in 2016, which means quite a lot of voters there delivered a negative verdict, if not on the GOP, on Bevin and policies that have included education and health care cuts.
And there is a reason Virginia’s legislature went from Republican to Democratic control in one fell swoop. It’s because of suburban voters like you.
You personally might not be enamored of Democratic policies like the new gun laws this new Virginia legislature is bound to pass, but you are not enamored of Trump, to put it mildly. And that is a political dynamic that played out this week across suburbia. Take Pennsylvania, for instance. Democrats swept once-Republican suburbs in a state Trump won by less than 1 percentage point in 2016 and desperately needs to win again. That looks iffy at this point.
Two things we know for sure as a result of these off-year elections: Support for impeachment is not hurting the Democratic brand. And neither is support for gun laws backed by supermajorities of Americans.
David: I hope that you are right about Pennsylvania, and that the same electoral disaster is awaiting Trump in all the other states that he won by 5 points or less. With that big of a swing, he’d lose Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin — more than enough to hand the presidency to a Democrat.
But every time I hear about "Medicare for All," the "Green New Deal" and all the massive tax hikes that Democratic presidential candidates are plotting, I worry that Trump will be safe. When Democrats take positions that can be reasonably called for open borders, for unrestricted third trimester abortions or on the extreme side of other culture war issues, I remember that Hillary Clinton won some states by awfully narrow margins, too.
From A to F: Mastio & Lawrence grade the 2020 candidates
If Democrats play this wrong, a whole other set of states could be in play. Clinton won New Hampshire by less than 1 point. She won Minnesota and Nevada by 2 points. If Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, instead of a chastened former President Trump, we could face four more years of Trump with the backing of an expanded electoral majority.
On impeachment, Republicans should be looking at the formerly reliably red suburbs and suddenly finding their minds open to the evidence on Trump’s Ukraine misconduct. But I am not hopeful. Last week, the House GOP was unanimous in opposing hearings on the matter, even the most threatened incumbents from suburban districts. They all had to have access to polls showing Trump’s deep unpopularity among college-educated whites. They voted to remain united regardless.
Jill: I feel the same pain about the Democrats’ swerve to the left. It’s fair to say that along with local issues, Trumpism — the president’s conduct and character — was on the ballot this week and did not fare well except in the reddest of states. That is a takeaway Democrats should heed.
It’s the same lesson delivered by the 2018 midterms, when moderate Democrats from Republican-leaning districts tipped the House to their party. How important are they? One obvious measure is how long and hard Speaker Nancy Pelosi protected them from votes that could have killed their reelection chances. If not for the smoking phone call summary on Ukraine, we might not even have an impeachment inquiry.
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There’s a difference between running on expanded gun background checks supported by 9 in 10 Americans and talking incessantly about throwing out the entire U.S. health system in favor of an expensive and unpopular Medicare for All experiment that will require most people to give up insurance they already have. That system might be better, it might save money and it might even be achievable — but all of that is in the very long run, and the election is next year.
The most liberal Democratic candidates and primary voters need to face reality and do some triage here. Job 1 is to defeat Trump at the ballot box if impeachment doesn’t get it done first. Because Issue 1 is whether American voters and democracy, and indeed the world, can withstand this presidency for another four years.
David Mastio, a libertarian conservative, is the deputy editor of USA TODAY's editorial page. Jill Lawrence, a center-left liberal, is the commentary editor of USA TODAY. Follow them on Twitter: @DavidMastio and @JillDLawrence
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What the 2019 elections mean for Donald Trump's future
