No, Democrats Are Not In Disarray

Walter Shapiro: “It’s hard to identify a Senate or House seat that is being lost because of excessive Democratic activism. Even if a Democratic incumbent like North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is troubled by calls to ax ICE, there is scant evidence that this makes her more vulnerable than before in a state that Donald Trump carried by better than a two-to-one margin.”

“For a party supposedly riven by unbridgeable chasms, the Democrats survived the primaries without major stumbles. This year, there are no Democratic challengers in winnable seats who have been forced to go on television to explain, ‘I am not a witch.’ And in California’s top-two ‘jungle primary,’ the Democrats avoided squandering any potential House pickups by making sure they got a candidate onto the ballot in all contested districts…”

“Nor are this year’s congressional races some overwrought struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party… No party is ever completely unified, not even the Republicans who are fearfully pledging their fealty to Trump. But the Democrats — for all their differences over economics and temperament — recognize the anti-Trump stakes in 2018. And so, for once in their turbulent history, they are more arrayed rather than disarrayed.”