Political Moderation Makes Comeback in 2017

Funny things are hap­pen­ing on the cam­paign trail this month: Jon Os­soff, the Geor­gia Demo­crat seen as an icon of the anti-Trump res­ist­ance, sounds like a mod­er­ate Re­pub­lic­an as he cam­paigns in a his­tor­ic­ally ex­pens­ive race for a va­cant sub­urb­an At­lanta House seat. Re­pub­lic­an Ed Gillespie, who barely eked out a primary win for the Vir­gin­ia gov­ernor­ship this week, spent one of his first post-primary cam­paign stops at a Korean-owned mar­tial-arts busi­ness where he talked about the im­port­ance of in­clus­iv­ity and eco­nom­ic growth.

At a time when ideo­lo­gic­al po­lar­iz­a­tion is near all-time highs, two of this year’s most vis­ible politi­cians—one Re­pub­lic­an, one Demo­crat—are run­ning prag­mat­ic cam­paigns de­signed to ap­peal to sub­urb­an mod­er­ates. Os­soff has a good chance to win a closely watched spe­cial elec­tion next Tues­day spe­cific­ally be­cause he’s avoided the highly charged anti-Trump rhet­or­ic of na­tion­al Demo­crats. Gillespie, who starts the Vir­gin­ia gov­ernor race as an un­der­dog against Demo­crat­ic Lt. Gov. Ral­ph Northam, has a fight­ing chance be­cause he’s em­bra­cing a cent­rist strategy fo­cused on woo­ing per­suad­able voters in the state’s sub­urb­an cor­ridors. In a brief post-primary in­ter­view with Na­tion­al Journ­al, Gillespie even cri­ti­cized Pres­id­ent Trump’s di­vis­ive rhet­or­ic, without men­tion­ing him by name.

In in­ter­views, strategists from both parties said the Geor­gia spe­cial elec­tion will hinge on how many usu­al Re­pub­lic­an voters will cast bal­lots for a Demo­crat. Both parties’ bases are turn­ing out at healthy levels, ac­cord­ing to early vote tal­lies, sug­gest­ing Os­soff will need to win big with in­de­pend­ents (which is likely) and peel off a small per­cent­age of Re­pub­lic­ans.

Re­pub­lic­an strategists are en­cour­aged that their voters are turn­ing out at a high­er level than in the first round, but the wild card is how many of them de­fect. “The Re­pub­lic­an turnout mod­el is much more ad­vant­age­ous than what we saw in the first round,” said former House GOP cam­paign chair­man Tom Dav­is, who has been closely track­ing the Geor­gia race. “Re­pub­lic­ans are go­ing to get their people out. The ques­tion is how much of a Re­pub­lic­an bleed you end up hav­ing.”

The New York Times’s Nate Cohn es­tim­ated that Os­soff won between 15 and 20 per­cent of re­gistered Re­pub­lic­ans in the first round, a strong show­ing for a Demo­crat. If that num­ber is closer to 20 per­cent for the run­off, he is in sol­id shape. And that dy­nam­ic would raise alarm bells for House Re­pub­lic­ans, who are de­pend­ing on a strong show­ing from their tra­di­tion­al voters to hold newly vul­ner­able seats in the GOP-friendly sub­urbs.

The sub­urb­an vote is even more crit­ic­al for Re­pub­lic­ans in Vir­gin­ia, which is hold­ing one of the two gov­ernor races in the off-year elec­tions. Giv­en the high Demo­crat­ic turnout in the primary and the strong anti-Trump sen­ti­ment in the state, Northam starts out with an ad­vant­age. If Gillespie has a shot at an up­set, it will be by over­achiev­ing in North­ern Vir­gin­ia, while main­tain­ing enough sup­port with a dis­il­lu­sioned base that views his es­tab­lish­ment cre­den­tials skep­tic­ally.

In a Demo­crat­ic-trend­ing state with a mo­tiv­ated party base, run­ning against the tide won’t be easy for the GOP. But gov­ernor races of­ten op­er­ate in­de­pend­ently from the na­tion­al en­vir­on­ment. To win, Gillespie will need to of­fer a com­pel­ling eco­nom­ic mes­sage that’s geared to­wards those very sub­urb­an­ites who have tuned out the party.

To that end, he is work­ing to re­as­sure swing voters that he’s not a typ­ic­al Re­pub­lic­an, fo­cus­ing on busi­ness-friendly policies and down­play­ing so­cially di­vis­ive is­sues. He’s hop­ing that Northam’s shift left­ward dur­ing the com­pet­it­ive Demo­crat­ic primary gives him some run­ning room in the cen­ter. His Fair­fax County res­id­ence should also give him a boost in the vote-rich D.C. sub­urbs against Northam, who hails from the Tide­wa­ter re­gion.

Former Vir­gin­ia Gov. Bob Mc­Don­nell proved that Re­pub­lic­ans can com­pete in the D.C. sub­urbs des­pite the state’s Demo­crat­ic shift (he even car­ried Fair­fax County in his 2009 race). Gillespie is em­bra­cing the Mc­Don­nell mod­el in a more chal­len­ging en­vir­on­ment. Even if he falls short, a com­pet­it­ive race would un­der­score that the path­way to vic­tory for Re­pub­lic­ans is through sub­urb­an, swing voters.

Os­soff and Gillespie, each in their own ways, are tack­ing to­ward the middle. At a time when Wash­ing­ton seems hope­lessly di­vided, can­did­ates run­ning in the states real­ize it’s not enough to rally the base any­more. The road to vic­tory is through the in­creas­ingly for­got­ten cen­ter.