That's becoming the lesson of the 2017 elections as well. It appears that Democrats won because their voters were motivated to vote. And because they are increasing support among new voters, especially women, Latinos and racial minorities.
Ryan Lizza's column in the New Yorker suggests that Homemade Hitler is showing signs of becoming the Prop 187 of today, first of all of Virginia, and perhaps of many states. Proposition 187 was the California measure that temporarily created lawful discrimination against Mexican immigrants in the early 1990s. It resulted immediately in sweeping Republican victories, but ultimately in the self-immolation of the R party, which almost doesn't exist in California anymore.
The difference, Lizza writes (and others have made this analysis as well) is that Prop 187 energized Latinos and drove them away from the Rs (towards which they tended) to the Democrats. It took a little while to develop their own candidates and political infrastructure within the party. But once it changed, it changed big time. Meanwhile, overt racism became more and more repugnant to other voters, including whites, who responded to these candidates and issues.
Lizza notes that the R candidate in Virginia ran a particularly racist and anti-Latino campaign. It was overwhelmingly rebuked. Instead:
"In northern Virginia, six older white Republicans in the House of Delegates were swept out of office by a group of candidates that included a transgender woman, two Latinas, an African-American woman, and an Asian immigrant. These victors were part of a wave that, pending recounts, may hand the Virginia House to Democrats. The one white male candidate among the new Democratic winners in the region is a self-described Democratic Socialist (and, as some observers, commenting on the rainbow-like quality of the Democratic candidates, have wryly noted, a redhead)."
Moreover these new candidates ran grassroots, community outreach campaigns. This is in a sense old fashioned politics, in which local campaigns--inherently more face to face--are more important than top of the ticket races. But eventually in those races the lower level campaigns matter.
Local races are also harder to analyze except one by one; even statewide races can be determined by factors not apparent outside the state. But in general: it's the vote, stupid.
A Politico poll out Wednesday finds that 85% of those who voted for the dictator apprentice would do so again. Their story on Johnstown fleshes this out with notable paradox. While attention should always be paid to their problems (especially the growing effects of what is inadequately called income inequality,) it's useless to spend too much time or much energy at all trying to convince these voters or change their vote. Similarly it's going to take organization and mobilization of non-white voters to change the South. It would be surprising if today's controversy over charges of molestation will derail Roy Moore in Alabama, though it won't do the national Rs any good.
What can and must happen is potential voters voting. Beyond the strategic and tactical mistakes of the 2016 campaign, Hillary lost because in a few key states people who should have voted for her did not vote at all. That's the problem (though the potent factor of overwhelmingly favorable polls that turned out to be spectacularly wrong that discouraged lazy voters is unlikely to be repeated.)
Some of that is down to the candidate, who should have been able to motivate women to vote with the sense of history (the first woman) that compelled so many to vote for Barack Obama (the first African American.) But Obama was a much less divisive and much more compelling candidate. Plus, the return to familiar white politicians after 8 years of President Obama may have caused some letdown among black voters who stayed home.
It's the vote, stupid, which is why the forthcoming Supreme Court decision on gerrymandering will be important, as are state vote suppression efforts (responsible for losing Wisconsin in 2016.) But most important will be community-level efforts to deliver votes to candidates who deserve them.
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