Shapiro urges Democrats to aim for 370 electoral votes
When Stephanie Valencia began helping plan the post-midterms conference months ago, the political consultant and co-founder of Equis, which researches Latino voters, figured it would be more of the same — strategists poring over results and plotting a way forward in a country dominated by Trump. “I did not expect to be coming here with so much hope,” Valencia said. “For the first time we can see the outlines of a post-Trump era.”
Democrats spent two days at the What’s Next conference celebrating what attendees considered a dream election, in which the party won virtually every contested race, flipped U.S. Senate seats in Mississippi and South Carolina, turned Texas blue and won big majorities in Congress. Scott Colom won his longshot bid to flip Mississippi’s Senate seat.
The mood rippled through the two days of sessions. Speakers tossed around the word “supermajority.” One data analyst casually discussed pushing for 60 seats in the Senate and displayed a slide suggesting winnable races in places like Missouri and Utah.
Not everyone treated the results as a mandate. Some warned that voters had not fallen back in love with Democrats, but were turning to the party out of frustration over high prices, the Iran war and concerns about government corruption. No clear recipe emerged from the conference to address widespread dismay about affordability and the economy, though attendees expressed hope that they had the power to figure it out.
Jason Delattre and several friends traveled to Denver from the Rio Grande Valley after working on Democratic campaigns in Texas, still stunned at the opportunities now open to them. “We have to figure out what we’re going to do next,” said Delattre, who wore a cowboy hat and a pin for winning U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico. “We have so much power we didn’t have before,” said his friend, Jose Robbie Juarez.
Some attendees said they believed statehood for Puerto Rico was finally within reach. “It finally feels we’re going to get it done,” said Luis Davila, the Democratic chair on the island.
Shapiro, a possible White House contender, argued the party should aim past a competitive race in the next presidential contest. Rather than “going out and scrapping for 270,” he said Democrats should be “fighting hard to swing for 370” — five more Electoral College votes than Barack Obama won in his historic 2008 campaign, the party’s previous high-water mark this century.
Pete Buttigieg, the former Secretary of Transportation and one of several potential presidential candidates who attended, captured the ambivalence. “Everybody’s happy about the results, but everybody’s looking over their shoulder saying, ‘Can we really be happy about this?’” he said, urging the party to celebrate without taking future wins for granted.
Old divisions surfaced alongside the optimism. A handful of protesters from the Sunrise Movement picketed outside the gathering Friday, complaining that the event’s sponsor, Majority Democrats, is more centrist and funded by wealthy businesspeople. A couple of protesters interrupted what was meant as a triumphant appearance by Jeffries, demanding a Green New Deal and an arms embargo against Israel; one man shouted profanities at Jeffries and called him a “traitor” as he was led from the auditorium. “I’m from Brooklyn,” Jeffries said. “This is light work.”
The conference also arrived as Democrats sort out their leadership. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who is challenging Chuck Schumer of New York for caucus leadership and has allied himself with the party’s liberal wing, appeared Friday and argued that voters had demanded change. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who may run for president again, called the fight a “family conversation” the party would have in Washington and welcomed the dissent. “I think this is a wonderful thing that we have right now, that we’re having a real discussion,” Booker said in an interview. “At a conference like this you’re seeing the future,” he added. “A new day is dawning in America.”
Representative Joe Neguse of Colorado described Democrats as “the big tent party.” “We have an ideological spectrum that covers virtually every element of Democratic thought,” he said in an interview. “And I think that’s exciting.”