High-profile Democratic politicians who might challenge President Donald Trump in 2020 appear poised to avoid facing top-notch Republican candidates for election this year in a GOP move that defies recent political strategy, Politico reported on Wednesday.
It is customary for a president's party to attempt to tarnish the image and deplete the war chests of potential threats to their leader's re-election by running a formidable candidate against them.
But as midterm elections near, it appears at least eight Democratic heavyweights will be running against less-than stellar competition, meaning they can spend the year honing their image as leaders of the anti-Trump resistance as they stockpile campaign cash, rather than having to concentrate on a serious GOP opponent trying to beat them, or at least damaging their image and depleting their war chest.
The lack of Republican effort is not only in liberal states where they wouldn't stand much chance of winning in any case, but the GOP also has failed to secure their top-choice candidate in eight of the 10 Senate races in states that Trump was victorious in 2016.
Republican strategist Jonathan Felts, who was political director for President George W. Bush during his second term told Politico that "in every White House in the modern era… the political shop is traditionally very active in helping to recruit [top-notch challengers, but] having sat there and done that recruitment in a tough time: If the president has bad numbers, that's a challenge."
Democratic strategists, for their part, say they are pleased that many of their candidates are not running against proven competition, but warn that it's likely to be harder than usual to secure easy victories given the current political polarization prevalent nationwide.
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