GOP election strategy aims to ensure Republican control at all levels for 'generations': Morning Joe
On Friday morning's "Morning Joe," the panel took up a report that the Republican Party is devoting massive resources to down-ballot candidates at the state level, believing that will be a long-term strategy that will pay off for generations.
Speaking with co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, Axios founder Mike Allen explained that has been an even greater shift in thinking within the GOP to focus on the long term instead of flooding high-profile candidates with cash in tough election battles.
As he explained, "We're seeing something that we haven't seen in all of my years of covering politics, way back to the Richmond Times Dispatch, and we're seeing yard signs for secretary of state races. And it's because there's a sudden focus on all of these down-ballot races, secretary of state, state legislatures, state supreme court in North Carolina, and of course why this matters is future elections that after 2020, we suddenly see the power of these offices that got very little attention."
That led former RNC head Michael Steele to interject, "It tells me, again, how Democrats are a day late and five terms short to the dance."
"The basis of the success in 2010 was not picking up 63 House seats," he elaborated. " What I saw is a grassroots individual, the race is at the state level, state legislative races, county executive, mayors races, governors races. We picked up 800 legislative races across the country which fueled the energy to get 63 house seats, 12 governorships, et cetera, and it's amazing to me that the Democrats are just now figuring out that the play is, 'oh, let's put some resources behind these state legislative races and offices because they're the ones who are going to set in motion the legislative agenda, not just for the state.'"
He later added, "So if I'm targeting state legislatures, guess what I'm also targeting? The ability to draw the lines, and so, you know, you're complaining about -- if you're complaining about, well, you know, the kinds of judges, well, who gets to decide who those judges are going to be? Well, state legislatures contribute to that by drawing the lines for congressional races and getting senators elected statewide that will have a say in that."
Watch the video below or at this link.
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