CNN political analyst Harry Enten is of the mindset that Democrats are “in a deep, dark state,” because who do the Ds run in 2028?
You have to wonder how some guys get the job title “political analyst” with this stunning lack of insight.
“They have no heir apparent, the incumbent president’s unpopular, and they hold no levers of power in Washington, most likely, come January,” Enten said in a segment on Monday, which no doubt you weren’t watching, because nobody’s watching CNN or MSNBC right now.
The “no heir apparent” is supposed to be a bad thing, but actually, it’s a natural part of the give-and-take when your side loses the presidential election.
Barack Obama, for instance, wasn’t an “heir apparent” after the 2004 cycle, when Democrats lost their second presidential election in a row.
Obama was just winning his first statewide race in the 2004 cycle.
And Donald Trump, back in 2012, was still a TV game show host, four years out from 2016.
Democrats have no obvious heir apparent looking four years out, but then, we’re not even a week past Election Day 2024.
Joe Biden is unpopular, for some reason, no doubt, but Kamala Harris is on track to finishing with 74 million votes, 48 percent of the overall total cast, while running uphill into a headwind.
Where the Ds are right now isn’t 1972 or 1984; a three-point loss and 226 electoral votes is far from being a landslide loss.
Harris lost Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) by 30,000, Nevada (six electoral votes) by 45,000, Michigan (15 electoral votes) by 80,000, Georgia (16 electoral votes) by 117,000, Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes) by 145,000.
As few as 262,000 votes of the 150 million total cast – less than two-tenths of 1 percent – changes the final outcome in the Electoral College.
Biden dropped out of the race in July because his internal polling told him Trump was on track to a 400-plus vote finish in the Electoral College.
Enten is characterizing this as “no real light at the end of the tunnel.”
He’s apparently unaware that the Senate is almost certain to flip back to Democrats in two years, with Republicans having to defend 20 of the 33 seats up in the 2026 midterms, and the Ds only needing a net gain of four to regain the majority; and it’s an even safer bet that Republicans, looking at having a five- to seven-seat House majority once the 2024 counting is done, will also lose the lower chamber in the 2026 midterms.
The last thing Democrats need to do is think about who the next presidential nominee is.
How about first deciding on how to rebuild the working-class coalition that they’d been representing since FDR?
Work on party unity, serve a couple of years as the loyal opposition, take Congress back in the midterms, then start thinking about 2028 when the new Congress is seated in 2027.
“No real light at the end of the tunnel.”
This is why people don’t watch CNN.
Video: There is light at the end of the tunnel, actually
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Chris Graham
