(Also at Let's Talk Nevada. Please check us out!)
There’s no denying what happened last week. Nevada Democrats suffered a political wipeout. They went from controlling both houses of the Legislature to controlling neither … and losing a shocking number of supposedly “safe” Assembly seats. They also managed to lose all the statewide races. And to add insult to injury, Rep. Steven Horsford (D-North Las Vegas) even lost in a jaw dropping upset to Cresent Hardy (R-Mesquite).
So what happened? Why did Nevada Democrats perform so horribly? How did the once mighty “Reid Machine” fall so dramatically? And what needs to be done to rebuild the party’s infrastructure in time for 2016, an election that will determine the next President, whether Senator Harry Reid (D) will secure one more term as Nevada’s Senior US Senator, and whether Republicans will lock in or lose their new found power in Carson City?
First off, let’s review what made Nevada a Blue State in 2008. When Senator Reid lobbied the Democratic National Committee to make Nevada the “First in the West Caucus”, he knew exactly what he was doing. When then Presidential Candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson, and others were campaigning here, they were also directing their campaigns to turn out supporters for the caucus. All that pre-caucus organizing by the campaigns and the state party resulted in 100,000+ new Democrats registered by January 2008. Suddenly, the political landscape of The Silver State changed.
From January 2008 on, Nevada Democrats could count on a steady flow of national Democratic dollars into their coffers. After all, there was a President to elect and Congressional seats to win. The money kept on flowing after President Obama was first elected, as Senator Reid was about to face the most daunting reelection battle of his political career in 2010. The Nevada State Democratic Party (NSDP) agreed to set up a coordinated campaign with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in order to build a statewide field operation for Senator Reid, along with a good field presence for Rep. Dina Titus (D). And they wasted no time in starting voter contact, as phone banks began as early as Fall 2009. Long before Nevada Republicans nominated “TEA Party” darling Sharron Angle to take on Senator Reid, his campaign team had already directed the coordinated campaign to prepare a near Presidential level of a field effort to cultivate and turn out votes for Reid and outwork whoever would be the Republican nominee in the field.
This is how Senator Reid was reelected despite the ugly national climate of 2010 and the millions of dollars “TEA Party” groups spent to defeat him. And not too long after that cycle ended, President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign (OFA) began. Once again, NSDP could count on national money and talent coming here, as President Obama wanted to win Nevada again while Senator Reid wanted then Rep. Shelley Berkley (D) to join him in the US Senate. And by Summer 2012, two powerful Democratic operations were busy registering and preparing to turn out Democratic voters. OFA was building a monstrous Democratic advantage in the field, and NSDP Coordinated (again with DSCC & DCCC) was doing its best to ensure those voters would also turn out for Berkley, Steven Horsford, and John Oceguera. While they couldn’t quite put Berkley & Oceguera over the top, they did succeed in electing Steven Horsford to Congress and electing Democrats further down the ballot while President Obama was enjoying another comfortable Nevada victory.
For three cycles, NSDP could count on receiving plenty of national support. After all, #WeMatter. But all of a sudden, we didn’t matter so much any more as 2013 dawned. With no hot US Senate race topping the ballot in 2014, what would Nevada Democrats use to turn out their voters? And how were they going to elect their candidates without all that DSCC & DCCC support?
Oh, and who or what would be the “top of the ticket” in 2014? After a surprisingly sanguine 77th Session of the Nevada Legislature, top Nevada Democrats decided not to challenge Governor Brian Sandoval (R) for reelection… At all. Instead, “None of These” won the Democratic Primary, which then turned the nomination over to someone who wasn’t even spending most of his time in the nation (let alone the state) any more.
So if there would be no Gubernatorial Candidate to rally Democrats around, who or what would motivate them for 2014? There were two ballot initiatives, one to remove the mining industry’s protected status in the state constitution and one to require only the largest 13% of Nevada businesses to pay something closer to their fair share so Nevada K-12 schools could be better funded. Yet even though NSDP ads would later evoke vague language of “fairness” and “protecting the middle class”, party leadership decided to keep their distance from both initiatives. Even after the state party’s central committee voted to endorse The Education Initiative (TEI), not a peep was said about it at NSDP headquarters.
That left the party with no “top of the ticket”. Sure, they tried to make Lt. Governor Candidate Lucy Flores (D) the “default top of the ticket” in June. But really, who gets excited about Lt. Governor? Who’s inspired to vote for a position that’s become mostly ceremonial in recent years? It was an incredibly unfair and awkward position for Flores, as no Lt. Governor Candidate has ever been asked to be the “default top of the ticket” before.
Meanwhile in the two closely watched races in the 3rd and 4th Congressional Districts, neither Democratic campaign was taking voter outreach all that seriously. Erin Bilbray’s campaign in NV-03 didn’t even bother hiring a field team until the summer, and Rep. Steven Horsford’s campaign in NV-04 ignored Republican field operations happening right under their noses… Until they suddenly realized they were in danger of losing in late October.
Virtually no one expected the horrifically low early voting turnout. So when the numbers started coming in and turning uglier and uglier, Nevada Democrats began scrambling in a mad dash to change those numbers. But without any master plan for field, without any kind of exciting “top of the ticket”, and without any sort of compelling message to deliver to voters, the state party was pretty much bumbling against the wind while individual campaigns were trying to “fend off the coming wave”.
Any honest Republican operative will tell you that he/she did not see this “massive wave” coming. Rather, Nevada Republicans simply rode a wave of good fortune to victory because Nevada Democrats didn’t even try to convince their base voters to turn out. They just took these base voters for granted, even as they had no compelling message to offer them and no “machine” in place to turn them out.
So now, Nevada Democrats are left asking what can be done to undo the damage. Can this sinking ship be saved? Probably, but it will take a major sea change. It will take a reevaluation of priorities. And it will take a dedicated effort to reinvest in both organizing the field and energizing the base.
In 2014, the powers that be at NSDP Headquarters forgot the most essential tenet of American politics: Voters like to be asked for their vote. And they prefer voting for something. While the failure of NSDP to adequately prepare for the 2014 cycle is no excuse for voters to sit out this election, it does explain why Nevada Democrats are now suffering from the blues.