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For Democrats, the loss in 2016 might prove a blessing in disguise. During the administration of Barack Obama, the party declined at the state level with a massive amount of Republican governors and 60 legislative houses controlled by the GOP.
In West Virginia, the party declined so badly that Hillary Clinton was reduced to a semi-minor party candidate with 26 percent of the vote. Like Pyrrhus, had the Democrats prevailed, "another such victory and we will be undone."
The votes the party gets are concentrated in large areas but not spread over a wide area. Even if Roy Cooper wins in North Carolina for governor, he faces large Republican majorities in the General Assembly and State Senate. During the campaign the rural reach of the party n North Carolina was poor; even reliable counties such as Bladen and Robeson flipped to the GOP. The emphasis was maximizing African American voters and the young, not old, Democratic base.
Which demonstrated the single biggest weakness of the building block strategy perfected by Obama and attempted by Clinton. It is too sensitive to tight turnout models that are extremely difficult to upset cycle after cycle. It did not work in 2010 or 2014 and it failed for the first time in a presidential year. Even the old techniques of the political boss would have come up short. And the other problem is that the map is overwhelmingly red except on the West Coast. Thus, for much of the south and border states, there is a weak Democratic party.
How could the Democrats reverse this situation? For openers, it is to be admitted that it is a heavy lift given that the bi-coastal leadership has little in common with rural America. Before Hillary's "basket of deplorables" remark, there was Obama's quip about guns and religion and the stubborn devotion to both in the country areas. As well, the party remains tone deaf to people and their concerns.
The South particularly is subject to this lack of understanding by Democrats. Zell Miller observed that when candidates like Mike Dukakis visited Dixie, the background props resemble the set from "Hee Haw." Forget the suburbs and updated small towns, to many liberals it is always rural poverty and Selma. Moreover, the entertainment industry seems to think Boss Hog still rules the roost. "Saturday Night Live" must have had a good laugh at the supposed ignorance of southern voters -- but surely they are not laughing now.
As Ben Wattenberg and Richard Scammon pointed out in 1971, the electorate is still "unyoung, unpoor and unblack." Both need to be conjoined, as in 2008. Remember Obama lost in Indiana and North Carolina in 2012, two states he won in his first try. Identifying politics, although effective, cannot succeed without an alternate group of voters. Hillary left out economics and lost while trying to feast on the Anti-Trump vote. It was too big a lift and the voters were ready for a change.
But if Republican regulars insist on instituting the policies of John McCain or Mitt Romney they will fail in 2018. Trump was on to something bigger than anything he suspected. The voters want consensus, not ideological division, neither the neo-liberalism of the Democrats nor the "young guns" dreariness of Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz. Trump's nationalist message overwhelmed both of these hackneyed and elitist groups.