By The President may have conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Several of his associates have already been convicted of crimes related to Russian interference. Why are Democrats talking about anything else?
A few reasons.
First, most Democrats in competitive races this year are running in Republican leaning districts. So in order to win, those Democrats need to do one (or several) of three things: 1) win over Trump voters, 2) turn out higher numbers of Democratic voters, or 3) make sure unpersuadable Trump voters stay home.
In a midterm year, the opposition party (Democrats, this year) usually has the edge in all three of these areas. The President’s supporters get complacent and become less likely to turn out. Opposition voters get angry and active. But that can change in a hurry.
The Mueller investigation is highly partisan. With the President constantly calling it a witch hunt and Fox News backing him up, it’s the type of issue that could get Republicans riled up. That makes these voters more likely to vote and more likely to vote Republican. That damages Democratic efforts at accomplishing strategies 2 and 3 and makes it harder for a Democratic candidate to win.
It’s worth remembering the example of the 1998 midterms, when Republicans overreached in their attempts to impeach President Clinton. That effort backfired, and the President’s party picked up seats in the House that year. The President’s party has only picked up seats in a midterm three times in American history. Three times. So Democrats really don’t want to run that risk.
By the same token though, talking about Mueller might activate Democratic voters and be a big boon in pursuing strategy 1. Isn’t it worth the risk?
That brings us to the second reason: it’s not a necessary risk. Democratic voters are already fired up. A recent CNN poll shows Democrats with a 13-point lead on the generic ballot. It also shows that 62% of Democrats are extremely or very excited to vote, as compared to 52% of Republicans.
Obviously, candidates have to run campaigns that keep that momentum going. But there are much less risky issues that can be used to accomplish that. Which leads to…
Reason three: voters just don’t care that much right now. There are other issues. Healthcare, for example. An NBC poll in July showed 38% of voters listing healthcare as one of their top two issues – and 67% of those voters favor Democrats. That’s strong ground for a Democrat to campaign on and it comes with much less risk.
Not coincidentally, a lot of first time candidates this cycle were motivated to run by specific issues or by a general anger at Trump. They’re going to focus on those issues or the damage that Trump is doing. Very few of them ran because they were mad about Russian interference in the 2016 election. If Russia is low on a candidate’s priority list, then it’s not going to get much airtime.
The final reason: the investigation isn’t over. No one knows where this is going to end. That makes talking about the Russia investigation a big risk. If Democrats campaign hard on Mueller’s investigation and he comes back next year exonerating Trump, that’s a potential political vulnerability for those Democrats.
Even more simply then that, some voters might consider it inappropriate to discuss the investigation in a political context if the investigation isn’t over yet. You have to be careful not to upset those voters.
In other words, caution is warranted.
That could really summarize the whole “don’t talk about Mueller” case. Campaigning on the investigation is a high risk, low reward strategy. There’s no good reason for Democrats to do it.
That doesn’t make the investigation unimportant. This investigation could lead to the President’s impeachment and perhaps even removal from office (different things). It’s incredibly important.
This just isn’t the moment.
Breakdown Politics 