President Barack Obama's controversial fights for tighter controls on guns and the environment and his push for the Iran nuclear deal have moderate Democrats on the run and may mean trouble for the party in tight political races this year,
Politico reports.
"Some of the party's more conservative members already have a strategy to distance themselves from the president," Politico's Burgess Everett and Lauren French write.
"Though many of Obama's economic and foreign policies are rankling liberals in Congress and on the presidential debate stage, congressional moderates are the most sensitive about how their ties to the president could hurt them politically."
Red State Senate Democrats Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana found that out.
Politico says after the two successfully opposed Obama on environmental and economic matters in 2012, they tried to distance themselves on his health care and immigration policies in 2014.
It didn't work. Both lost their seats and the Democrats lost the Senate.
"Given the steady manner in which Democrats march together on so many issues, it can be difficult for the party apparatus to remember there are major intraparty differences," Politico says.
"And emphasizing those differences with Obama, Hillary Clinton and the party's more liberal leaders may be the only way for the party to even compete for Senate control in 2018 and for House control next decade."
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