Democrats are ending the year on a political high note. They are buoyed by Doug Jones' stunning upset victory in the Alabama Senate race, an array of successes in November's off-year elections and signs that the party apparatus is making progress in overcoming the 2016 divisions about the fairness of their nominating process.
Jones' victory improves the Democrats' long-shot hopes of regaining control of the Senate next year by reducing the current Republican margin to 51-49. And though it saves the Republicans from being saddled with a Sen. Roy Moore, the controversial state judge's defeat was a stinging rebuke to President Donald Trump, who campaigned strongly for him in the campaign's closing week after opposing him in an earlier GOP primary.
To add to the president's political woes, his strong support for a man accused of improper behavior with under-age girls, along with renewed focus on prior allegations of sexual improprieties against him, has put the GOP on the wrong side of the growing debate over the role of women. This comes at the very time Democrats are seizing the political high ground by forcing the resignation of two prominent members over alleged sexual improprieties.
While Tuesday's Alabama election and last week's ouster of Sen. Al Franken and Rep. John Conyers took the headlines, they were not the only positive developments for a Democratic Party that has struggled to regain its footing since Trump's unexpected victory a year ago. Over last weekend, the Unity Reform Commission, created to resolve 2016 concerns about the party's nominating process, marked an important step toward internal party unity by coming together on an array of reforms.
The panel unanimously recommended a reduced 2020 role for elected and party officials serving as so-called "super-delegates," took steps to encourage greater participation in nominating primaries and caucuses and voted to require greater sharing by top party leaders of National Committee finances. Those recommendations, most adopted with near or total unanimity, must still pass through two more levels, the party's Rules and Bylaws Commission and the full Democratic National Committee. The DNC's members may not take kindly to a recommendation their convention votes in 2020 would be tied to the results of primaries and caucuses in their states.
Nevertheless, the proposals adopted last weekend, which also mandate strict neutrality by party officials in 2020, will go a long way toward resolving the sometimes overheated complaints by supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders that their decisive 2016 defeat to Hillary Clinton was due to restrictive party rules. That will change to a substantial degree in 2020, if the recommendations are approved, though the panel rejected a Sanders proposal to require participation of independent voters in all caucuses and primaries.
Representatives of the Vermont senator hailed the panel's unity after the sometimes tense two-day session. On Friday, Nina Turner, the outspoken former Ohio state senator who heads the Sanders political organization, said excluding independents was "the height of hypocrisy" for a party that seeks their general election votes. But on Saturday, she acknowledged the outcome represented a consensus, adding that "in consensus, you don't get everything you want."
Like most out-of-office parties, Democrats lack a clear leader and have had trouble crafting a unified party message. But the Alabama result and the other events provided a significant morale boost for next year's mid-term elections, in which they hope to overcome the 23-seat Republican margin in the House, regain big state governorships and reverse that narrow two-vote Senate deficit. The latter will be tougher because so many Democrats are seeking re-election in states that voted for Trump. To win control, Democrats need to retain all of their seats, including the Minnesota spot opened up by Franken's resignation, and win at least two now held by the GOP.
Their best chances are in Arizona, where GOP Sen. Jeff Flake is retiring, and Nevada. And Jones' victory makes it possible for victories in those states to give them control.
In the House, some Republicans foresee an anti-Trump political tidal wave similar to the ones that gave Democrats the House in 2006 and restored it to Republicans in 2010. In Alabama, a strong turnout of black voters and support from suburban women proved crucial, just as an outpouring of women were key to November's Democratic tide in Virginia.
Republicans, meanwhile, may have escaped the political burden of a Sen. Roy Moore and diminished the prospect his victory would spur more insurgent challenges to sitting GOP senators. But they face a difficult 2018, thanks to Trump's record low job approval, unpopular tax cut legislation and the fact that voters often punish the party in power in mid-term elections, a pattern they may have started a year early.