Gage Skidmore
U.S. Sen-elect Kyrsten Sinema speaking at a campaign event in Phoenix in October.
COMMENTARY: I don’t understand why some Democrats think Beto O’Rourke is the person to take on Donald Trump in 2020.
But there are a couple of other border-state Democrats whose impressive victories earlier this month should help Democrats figure out how to win back the presidency.
Immigration is one of the defining issues of our times. Given their proximity to the border, the Texas and Arizona Senate seats and southern New Mexico’s House seat, which were swing districts in this month’s election, should serve as a lesson for Democrats.
First, what didn’t work: O’Rourke’s attempt to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz with a campaign built on star power, Obama-esque appeal, and unabashedly left-leaning politics like impeaching Trump and supporting a “Medicare for all” plan.
Heath Haussamen
O’Rourke certainly fired up the Democratic base in Texas and across the United States. He gave Cruz a scare on his journey to national stardom, coming within a few points of being the first Democrat to win a statewide office in Texas since 1994.
And he lost.
Democrats Kyrsten Sinema and Xochitl Torres Small, on the other hand, ran as moderates. They fired up progressive bases anyway while earning the support of swing voters – and they won. In Arizona, Sinema defeated Republican Martha McSally in the open race to replace outgoing U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake. Torres Small defeated Republican Yvette Herrell in the open New Mexico race to replace Steve Pearce in the U.S. House.
The two Democratic women beat unabashed Trump supporters in Trump-supporting districts.
In New Mexico, the congressional district was swinging Trump’s way as Election Day approached. While a mid-September New York Times poll put Trump’s approval and disapproval in the district at 47 percent each, a second Times poll conducted five weeks later, after the Brett Kavanaugh battle, put Trump’s approval at 51 percent compared to 45 percent disapproval.
In Arizona, a Times poll in mid-October found that more likely voters, 48 percent, approved of the job Trump was doing than the 46 percent who disapproved.
And yet, 12 percent of Republicans in Arizona voted for the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.
O’Rourke’s support across the political aisle was weaker. It appears he won the backing of about 400,000 people who also voted for Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican. That’s fewer than 5 percent of the votes in Texas.
Torres Small won big in progressive Doña Ana County, but that alone didn’t propel her to victory. She won 28 percent of the vote in conservative Lea County. That’s almost 12 points better than Democrat Merrie Lee Soules did against Pearce there in 2016. Torres Small also did roughly 12 points better than Soules in conservative Chaves, Eddy and Otero counties.
Torres Small angered some Las Cruces-area progressives with rhetoric that prioritized border security – in her words, keeping out “traffickers and violent criminals” – over protecting immigrants. And unlike O’Rourke, she refused to back Medicare for all. Progressives showed up to vote for her anyway, in historic numbers. The motivation to fight Trump is powerful.
Maybe O’Rourke fans are betting he can turn out enough left-leaning voters in swing states that Trump supporters won’t matter. But that didn’t work in Texas. And the evidence from these border states suggests it won’t work in 2020. Democrats need to win back some conservative voters.
Torres Small and Sinema didn’t build the same superstar image that O’Rourke crafted. But they got the job done. Perhaps Democrats should be encouraging Sinema, who’s served three terms in the U.S. House, to run for president instead of O’Rourke.
Heath Haussamen is NMPolitics.net’s editor and publisher. Agree with his opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary here.