The Daily - A Crossroads for the Democratic Party

Episode Date: May 23, 2018

In Georgia, two women were locked in a close race for the Democratic nomination for governor. What does this primary tell us about the future of the Democratic Party? Guest: Jonathan Martin, a national political correspondent for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, in Georgia, two women have been locked in a close race for the Democratic nomination for governor. What the election tells us about the future of the Democratic Party. It's Wednesday, May 23rd. Jonathan, tell me about the first candidate in this race. Stacey Evans is a 40-year-old former state legislator.

Growing up, I didn't know there was anything unusual about it. I just thought we moved a lot. She grew up really modest means. I was born just outside of Ringgold, Georgia. My mom had me when she was 17. And went to college on a scholarship. Jonathan Martin covers national politics for The Times. I'd always assumed that I'd go to college,

but I never thought about how I'd pay for it because we didn't have any money to do anything like that. And is now running for governor. I remember what it was like to grow up in a family on the edge where you didn't know what the future might hold or even where you might live next year. As governor, I'll never forget that. And what about the second candidate in this race?

Stacey Abrams, who is also a former state representative. When I was 15, my parents were both admitted to Emory University to become Methodist ministers. So they packed up our family and we moved from Mississippi to Georgia. My parents had a car, a used car, that got us across Alabama and died a couple of months later. 44 years old and a former small business owner, now running for governor. I'm running for governor because I want to open the gates wide for everyone in Georgia. No one should feel that they don't belong in our Georgia. That's my vision, a vision of Georgia where everyone is welcome.

So two Stacys with somewhat similar backgrounds. Correct. With one key difference. One's Black, one's white. I am deeply humbled by the possibility of being the first Black woman ever elected to serve as governor in the United States. And why is race so crucial? Well, because Georgia is a changing state. This is certainly a conservative-leaning state in the Deep South, but it's also home to a very vibrant African-American community in Atlanta. And Atlanta has also become a kind of magnet for immigrants across the world. So we're also curious, you know, is Georgia becoming more purple than red politically? I'm going to win this race by running a different kind of campaign, a people-powered campaign.

So tell me more about Stacey Abrams' strategy here in her campaign for governor. So her theory of the case is that conservative-leaning white voters, especially in the more rural parts of the state, aren't gettable. They're not coming back to the Democratic Party of their ancestors. They're Republicans now, and that it's time and money wasted trying to win them over when you can actually try to get more voters who are guaranteed to pull the lever for you to register and vote. to pull the lever for you to register and vote. There are 800,000 people of color in the state of Georgia in 2014 who did not have the right to vote. Not because they weren't eligible, but because no one had ever asked them to register.

That's the better investment. Find immigrants, find Black non-voters, find recent 18 and 19-year- old kids who are now eligible to vote. And so I took it upon myself to register all 800,000 people of color in the state of Georgia by 2024. Get them registered and turn them out on election day. So she's explicitly not trying to appeal to Trump voters, kind of white working class voters in Georgia, and pick them off.

Her strategy is to essentially stick with liberals, liberal class voters in Georgia, and pick them off. Her strategy is to essentially stick with liberals, liberal ideologies, positions, and voters. That's the gamble, that if you give those folks a reason to turn out, that they will show up in a midterm election when typically those constituencies don't vote. That if you give them a reason by sort of doubling down on a more progressive ideology, that's the way to get them to the polls and that's the way to win statewide. There's the Georgia that was, a Georgia that was mired in discrimination and hatred. And that Georgia, luckily, is, I think, far behind us.

But we still have a Georgia today that grapples with some of that discrimination, some of that bigotry. You know, I was in Georgia last week. I spent some time traveling with Stacey Abrams and seeing her talk to folks. And she is very clear. As she told me, she said, look, I'm not going to pander. And I am who I am. But I'm running to be the governor of a new Georgia. Of a Georgia that we all can see in this room.

A Georgia that looks like this room. And with your support on May 22nd, I will become the Democratic nominee for that new Georgia. Are you with me? The other theory of the case is don't necessarily reinvent the party to a Clinton-style, you know, centrist party, but do aggressively appeal to the Trump voters, the working class white voters who abandoned the party in 2016, and try to get them back while retaining the liberal core of the party. And is that what Stacey Evans is doing? Yeah, exactly.

In the 18 years that I lived in Ringgold, we lived in 16 homes, most of them trailers, some of them empty lots now. 16 homes, always one step ahead of a bill collector. We can get some of those folks back. Not all of them, but you can get enough of them back. And when you combine that with some suburbanites who don't like Trump and the liberal core of the party, that might get you to 50.1. liberal core of the party, that might get you to 50.1. And I'm running for governor to be a champion for every family, for people who work hard and are trying to get ahead in an economy that leaves too many behind and seems more unfair in every way. And how is Evans approaching that strategically as a candidate in this primary? What does it look like? Well, her case is that she can win back

those kinds of voters in a way that Abrams can't. My opponent, on the other hand, thinks you just focus on Democrats, and if we just get all Democrats out, we'll win. And in a state like Georgia, I don't think that's enough. I don't think the math adds up. And I also just don't think it's healthy for democracy. And that the Abrams approach is going to backfire. She said that it's basically the equivalent of cowering in a corner with like-minded voters. Jonathan, is it fair to say that this is a campaign in which these two candidates' politics, their positions, are not all that different, but the way that they're representing those views and talking about them and campaigning and presenting to voters is very different?

Yeah, that's exactly right. There's not much difference in their actual ideology. If you offered them, you know, eight, nine issues, they probably would be in agreement on all of them. It's much more about their approach and their strategy and what they think is going to be effective in Georgia circa 2018. And yet they're becoming, despite these overlapping positions,

these symbolic poles of the Democratic Party, it sounds like, as we head into the midterms. Yeah, I mean, that's why this race is so fascinating is because this debate echoes the broader national debate taking place among Democrats when it comes to how they take back the presidency. Do they do it by mobilizing more of their like-minded supporters or do they do it by trying to grab some of the Trump supporters and win back those who have strayed from the fold? That's the question. Was the issue Hillary or was the issue her politics and Trump's politics?

Because if you believe that the problem was Hillary and that that's why there was a drop-off among younger and non-white voters, then you might not have an appetite to try to win over the Trump voters again. But the Abrams-Evans divide or lack of it suggests that perhaps the midterms are becoming more about strategy and packaging than perhaps substance and policy. strategy and packaging than perhaps substance and policy? There's no question about it that the Democratic Party has moved to the left. There's not much of a centrist wing left in the party. And it is much more now about the presentation and packaging than it is about the issue set, right? There's not a lot of Democrats left who are going to take the NRA line or oppose abortion rights. And let me just make one more point. Democrats are finding a lot of success in nominating women in this year's primaries. And there's no question that the energy behind the kind of anti-Trump movement has been led by women. If you talk to Democrats privately, though, they recognize that this can't be the year of the white woman, right? That a party that so heavily relies on the votes of black women can't just be defined by, you know, white women in pussy hats, that it's

got to be a broader cross-section of females representing their party in office. There's got to be some success stories from women of color. Hello, this is Hillary Clinton asking you to vote for my friend, Stacey Abrams, for governor of Georgia this Tuesday, May 22nd. Abrams, with an A, is the first black woman to serve as House Democratic leader, a small business innovator. woman to serve as House Democratic leader, a small business innovator. Democrats rely on African-American votes and particularly Black women for their votes. And it's difficult for Democrats to keep doing that and not putting forward Black women as candidates. They can't just be a loyal constituency for the party when it comes to election day, but

then not actually be nominated and win elections. Zero Black women have been elected governor in the history of the country. Two Black women have been elected to the U.S. Senate. There's one Black woman there, Kamala Harris, right now. For a party that relies on Black voters, it's difficult for their own internal politics to deny Black women the nomination for high office. And what about for voters, this issue of race? How much is it mattering to them, both as a pro and maybe as a con, when it comes to Abrams? When I was down there last week talking to African-American voters,

they are thrilled about the idea, after having the first Black president, of having a Black woman become governor of their state. This race really feels like it has representation on a larger scale, on a national scale. We've seen so much change in the way people feel the power of their vote in Virginia, in Alabama. And I kind of feel like Georgia is the next to go. So there is this sense in the black community of opportunity, of possibility. But there's also uncertainty and skepticism in the black community. It kind of reminds me of what Obama encountered in 2008.

It wasn't until black voters saw in Iowa that white voters would support a black man to be president, that they really came around, that they really believed. And I think it's even more acute among black southerners. They are just skeptical that white conservative-leaning voters will support a black woman. And so I think there is some degree of skepticism, even fatalism, that this is a possibility. So it's a really interesting brew of both pride, optimism, but also a kind of bone-weary skepticism born of history and disappointment that the white community would rally behind her. So, Jonathan, what's happening on the Republican side

that might influence how all this plays out on the Democratic side in Tuesday's vote? The Republican primary has seen a bit of a rush to the right. Casey Cagle, who's the lieutenant governor, is the front runner. But some of his challengers who are trying to outflank him have gone to great lengths to win over conservative voters. I'm so conservative, I blow up government spending. I own guns that no one's taking away. My chainsaw's ready to rip up

some regulations. One of them, Brian Kemp, for example, showed himself next to his pickup truck. I got a big truck just in case I need to round up criminal illegals and take them home myself. Yep, I just said that. I'm Brian Kemp. If you want a politically incorrect conservative, that's me. Another candidate actually drove around the state in a bus that he claimed was going to be used to pursue undocumented immigrants. We have our bus tour ready to go, but it's not going to be one of those pangy political bus tours.

We've got the deportation bus. That's right. You heard me. The Michael Williams deportation bus. And how does what's going on on the Republican side seem to make things easier or harder for these two Democrats as they campaign? Well, that's the whole question is, can Casey Cagle, if he is the nominee for the Republicans, can he appeal to center and center right voters and sort of resist those kind of hardline immigration appeals that we've seen in the primary? If he is able to sort of move past them, then I think he'd be a formidable candidate in a state that is still more red than it is purple. If he, however, does have to reassure the base of the party,

and he does get dragged further to the right, that could create opportunities for Democrats. So a candidate like Stacey Abrams, who is intentionally going after a more liberal constituency, might still attract more moderate voters in the general election if the Republican candidate is pulled to the right in the primaries. What's interesting is that even during the primary right now, when she's asked about guns in the more rural parts of the state, like where I was with her, she's got an answer that is clearly well-crafted and ready for the general election.

She says, look, I grew up in Mississippi. My great-grandmother taught me how to shoot a gun. I understand hunting. I understand gun culture. We know that guns will exist in the United States. This is not a conversation about the Second Amendment. That is a false narrative. I know how to shoot. My family owns guns. And then she pivots and makes the case for gun control. But we do not own assault weapons. We do not believe that you should have the right to kill people in their schools and in their churches and in their movie theaters. These are places where guns should not be. And the best way to solve But she is clearly getting that answer ready for this fall when she's on the campaign trail trying to appeal to a broad cross-section of voters in the state, which is first reassure folks that you get the gun culture and then make the case

for restrictions. So I'm really struck by the fact that at this point, Democrats don't really know if the liberal strategy that's embodied by Abrams is better, more effective than the moderate strategy that seems to be embodied by Evans. In 2016, which is a race we covered closely together, Democrats, of course, chose Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. They chose the moderate message over the left-wing one. And President Trump won. So is this still very much an open question? Is this still kind of an experiment? Oh, it's a very much

a sort of live, ongoing debate within the Democratic Party is which is the better approach? Do you try to mobilize liberals who may be tuned out to politics because they're tired of, you know, consensus-oriented status quo politics? Or do you assume that those folks are going to show up because you're the better of the

two options and spend more of your time and money trying to win over moderate voters? That is one of the central debates happening right now among Democrats. So we're talking on Tuesday evening before the polls close in Georgia. Will the outcome of this race be meaningful in starting to answer that question for Democrats? Yes, the general election outcome will be, I think, hugely important to litigating that debate. If Stacey Abrams is the nominee in Georgia

and this approach works and she wins the governorship of Georgia and becomes an African-American female governor in the Deep South, that will go a long ways toward putting points on the board for those who say mobilization is the best approach for Democrats. Mobilization, meaning the liberal strategy, get as many young and people of color as possible to come out for Democrats. That's your strategy. You got it. Say Trump! Say Trump! Say Trump!

Please allow me to introduce for the very first time the official Democratic nominee. And the next governor of the state of Georgia. Stacey Abrams. On Tuesday night, Stacey Abrams won Georgia's Democratic primary, becoming the first Black woman to be a major party nominee for governor in U.S. history. Our campaign will be a coalition that reaches across backgrounds, sharing our constant belief in our capacity to win. From our campuses to our neighborhood blocks, from our senior centers, outwards a wave is coming and I know Georgians won't stand on the sidelines because you see in the book of Esther there's a verse that reminds us that we were born for such a time as this we'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. There's a chance, it's a very substantial chance that it won't work out. I don't want to waste a lot of time, and I'm sure he doesn't want to waste a lot of time. So there's a very substantial chance that it won't work out, and that's okay. During an Oval Office meeting with South Korea's president, Moon Jae-in, President Trump said that next month's summit with North Korea's leader might be delayed over growing hostility from Kim Jong-un. If it doesn't happen, maybe it'll happen later.

Maybe it'll happen at a different time. But we will see. Many have attributed Kim's hostility to comments from Trump's national security advisor, John Bolton, comparing the North to Libya, whose leader was deposed after giving up his nuclear weapons program. But at the White House on Tuesday, Trump blamed China. President Xi is a world-class poker player. And I'd probably maybe doing the same thing that he would do. Suggesting that North Korea's harsher tone was influenced by a recent meeting between Kim and China's president, Xi Jinping.

And I think things changed after that meeting, so I can't say that I'm happy about it. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.