We Did it: Cooper’s midterm message: Less Trump, more kitchen table

Dec 13, 2021

Presented by Advancement Project

Quick Fix

— The new chair of the Democratic Governors Association said the party needs to focus less on former President Donald Trump and more on kitchen table issues as the party faces a tough midterm environment.

— From dysfunctional commissions to legal challenges, state courts are taking control of the redistricting process in states across the country.

— New Mexico state lawmakers sent new political maps to the governor's desk, and the new congressional lines could spell trouble for GOP Rep. Yvette Herrell.

Good Monday morning. Zach Montellaro (zmontellaro@politico.com, @ZachMontellaro) wrote this morning's topline from the Democratic Governors Association meeting in New Orleans. Thanks, Zach! Email me at smurray@politico.com and follow me on Twitter @stephanie_murr.

Email the rest of the POLITICO Campaigns team at sshepard@politico.com, zmontellaro@politico.com and amutnick@politico.com. Follow them on Twitter: @POLITICO_Steve, @ZachMontellaro and @allymutnick.

Days until the FL-20 special election: 29

Days until the 2022 midterm elections: 330

Days until the 2024 election: 1,058

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TopLine

Gov. Roy Cooper talks with the media on Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021, after touring Pilot Mountain State Park in Pinnacle, N.C..

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper is the new chair of the Democratic Governors Association. | Walt Unks/The Winston-Salem Journal via AP

DOWN ON THE BAYOU — This weekend's DGA winter meeting kicked off North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper's tenure as chair of the committee, starting off a 2022 cycle where the name of the game for the party is, largely, incumbent protection. Of the more than half-dozen battleground governorships Democrats are defending next year, Pennsylvania is the only one where Democrats aren't running an incumbent. (Republicans, by contrast, have open seats in three of the four of their toughest defensive states.) For a refresher, check out my state-by-state rundown of the field from October.

Democrats right now are staring down a tough midterm political environment out of Washington, which will trickle out to the governor's races across the country. To combat that, Cooper says, Democrats need to focus less on Trump and more on kitchen table economics. "If we talk about the policies that we are implementing, and the good things that we are doing, then we don't really need to" talk about Trump, he said. "Republicans are doing a good enough job of that themselves," he continued, citing the rash of primary challengers to incumbent Republicans across the map, some backed by the former president.

That would be a different message than what we saw in the Virginia governors' race, where former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe's closing message was consumed with tying his opponent, now-Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin, to the former president. (Cooper did not mention Virginia during his comments about a less Trump-centric message.) But even as Trump is poised to play an even bigger role in the midterms than he did in the off-year elections, Cooper says Democrats cannot get distracted by solely speaking about him. "If one of Trump's candidates is nominated or defeats an incumbent Republican governor, I think that's news," he said. "I just don't think it needs to be the central focus."

The North Carolina governor also said Democrats can't handwave away frustrations voters have with the economy and the lingering pandemic. "I think we have to recognize and acknowledge that families have had a tough time over the last two years," he said. "Both health-wise — whether it is or isn't from COVID, whether it's mental health — and economically."

But he was relatively sanguine about the intra-party fights in Washington over President Joe Biden's agenda, and the president's slumping poll ratings. He noted that there was still a lot of time before the elections, and said he believed Democratic candidates will want Biden to come and stump for them. "I'd rather them do what they're doing and get things done, and worry about messaging later," he said. "I think once these policies get implemented, we're going to have a lot to talk about. … They've had, I think, a remarkable success making a big impact on people's lives. You're going to begin to see it once the money starts flowing into the states."

Down the Ballot

THE MAP LINES — State courts are wielding a significant amount of influence over the redistricting process in key states, POLITICO's Ally Mutnick reported. In several states, dysfunctional redistricting commissions missed deadlines to redraw political maps. In Virginia and Washington, the courts will take over because the commissions failed. Courts are also likely to determine maps for the next decade in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin and possibly Louisiana. Meanwhile, the North Carolina state Supreme Court paused candidate filing while it considers the legality of the Tar Heel State's new maps.

— New Mexico state lawmakers approved the state's new congressional map on Saturday, the Albuquerque Journal's Dan McKay reported. The new map, which splits Albuquerque, would create three Democratic-leaning districts. The map passed on a party-line vote, with all Republican lawmakers opposing it. Herrell's district would undergo a significant change if Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signs it into law. Trump won Herrell's district by 12 points in 2020, but Biden would have won it under the proposed map.

— The Supreme Court turned aside a GOP suit in Wisconsin that would've blocked efforts to litigate redistricting in federal courts, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Patrick Marley reported. "The decision means liberal and nonpartisan groups will have a chance to get the federal courts to review the maps after the state Supreme Court wraps up faster-paced litigation over them," frustrating Republicans. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed Republican-drawn maps, leaving it up to the courts to redraw the district lines.

JUST PEACHY — Georgia Democrats are "getting hit from every angle" by Republicans after making significant gains in 2020, POLITICO's Maya King reported. After Biden won the presidential election, and Democrats won both Senate seats in the January runoff, Republicans have passed new voting restrictions and moved to take more control over elections. The most recent GOP move comes as part of redistricting. State lawmakers drew a new congressional map that would likely erase Democratic gains by splitting Cobb County.

MIDTERM MESSAGING — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to run for reelection, CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere reported. There's a chance Pelosi will seek to stay in House leadership after 2022, despite her previous pledge to step aside. Pelosi has been the top Democrat in the House for nearly two decades.

LANDMARK LEGISLATION? — House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn expects Democrats will find a way to bypass the filibuster to pass voting legislation, Axios' Alexi McCammond reported. Clyburn made the comments during an "Axios on HBO" interview. "It may require some jiu-jitsu, but that's not beyond the Senate to do that," Clyburn said. Democrats have tried several times to bring a voting bill to the Senate floor but were blocked by Republicans. Senate lawmakers are discussing other rules changes to bring voting legislation to a vote, POLITICO reported last week.

GETTING IN — Jackson County (Texas) Sheriff A.J. "Andy" Louderback is challenging Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) in the TX-27 Republican primary, the Victoria Advocate's Mark Rosenberg reported. Already running in the Republican primary are Andrew Alvarez, Chris Mapp and Eric Mireles.

DROPPING OUT — New York Democrat Zephyr Teachout dropped out of the race for state attorney general and endorsed incumbent Tish James, POLITICO New York's Anna Gronewold wrote (for Pros). Teachout's departure from the race is the latest domino to fall since James ended her bid for governor last week.

ENDORSEMENT ALERT — EMILY's List made two statewide endorsements in Oregon and Texas. The group is backing Oregon Democratic state House Speaker Tina Kotek for governor, and Democrat Rochelle Garza for Texas state attorney general.

THE PROCESS — A partisan review of the 2020 election in Texas entered a new phase when the secretary of state requested new documents from four counties, The Dallas Morning News' Philip Jankowski wrote. The secretary of state is seeking a "full accounting of mail-in votes and provisional votes, any reported chain of custody issues as well as complaints that those offices might have received regarding the 2020 presidential election" from election administrators in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Harris counties. A summary of audit findings is expected by the end of the month.

— A Republican attorney involved in Wisconsin's partisan 2020 election review will seek sanctions against a lawyer from the city of Green Bay, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Patrick Marley reported. "The move comes two weeks after Michael Gableman, the former state Supreme Court justice overseeing the election review, filed a lawsuit seeking to jail the mayors of Green Bay and Madison if they don't meet with him," Marley noted. The mayors brushed off the lawsuit, and an attorney for Green Bay said he would "ask a judge to impose sanctions on Gableman for how he has conducted himself," prompting the sanctions threat from Gableman's lawyer.

— Former Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) filed a lawsuit to inspect absentee ballots in Georgia's Fulton County, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Mark Niesse reported. Trump-endorsed Perdue has made the former president's false claims about the 2020 election central to his new campaign for governor. "Perdue's lawsuit echoes a case that also sought to inspect about 147,000 absentee ballots in Fulton County," which a judge dismissed.

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PRIMARY SOURCES — Republicans in one Texas county intend to run their own primary election this spring, independent of the county election system, Votebeat's Jessica Huseman reported. The Potter County Republican Party plans to hand-count ballots that are hand-marked by voters, although "experts say the move will introduce a higher risk of fraud, confuse voters, and likely result in legal challenges."

CODA — QUOTE OF THE DAY — "I am running for president ... of the Maggie Hassan fan club." — Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) in New Hampshire, per WMUR's John DiStaso.