Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:
Right.
Well, it’s working in his home state. In fact, there was a poll out just the other week that showed that Governor Newsom’s approval rating in the state is actually now up eight points since April. So he has definitely coalesced that anger about Trump or that frustration among many who don’t like Donald Trump that there wasn’t enough pushback from Democratic elected officials.
I think he’s benefited from that, both in his style and then, of course, going on the offense when it comes to the redistricting. But what I think is also a challenge and part of the reason why Democrats do feel like this, I think you said, lost in the wilderness is that while every one of these high-profile Democrats, whether it’s Governor Pritzker or Governor Newsom, is showing themselves as bulwarks against Donald Trump, ways in which they’re going to — quote — “fight fire with fire,” very few of them are really showing a new or different path forward for the Democratic Party.
Who are they outside of being against Trump or anti-Trump? And, also, you have a Democratic Party, much like where the Republican Party was in 2015, feeling as if the norms and the systems and the status quo just isn’t working in a way. They don’t want those same kinds of voices, or at least they’re looking for some voices that are going to be outside of the sort of traditional status quo kind of language and policies that they have — that Democratic voters have heard before.
So I think that’s an opportunity for somebody who maybe we haven’t been hearing from right now or an opportunity for some of these Democrats who are not currently on the front lines against Donald Trump, but who can come up with some ways in which they can define the party as being more than just the anti-Trump coalition.
