For a party once accustomed to dominating state politics, the outlook for Tennessee Democrats is bleak.
Over the past decade, Democrats went from controlling all three branches of state government to giving up GOP
supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature, losing two governor’s races by wide margins and watching as the state Supreme Court appointed the first Republican attorney general since Reconstruction.
The heavy erosion of Democratic power has left them with little sway at the state Capitol on issues like Medicaid expansion, guns, education and abortion. And while Republicans in charge have pushed an increasingly conservative agenda, so far there’s been no sign of a new opening for Democrats.
Still, longtime Republican campaign adviser Tom Ingram said the GOP’s takeover after decades in the political wilderness shows that no party can claim a permanent hold on power.
“When political parties get too successful they usually get arrogant and make mistakes and set up the return of the other party,” he said. “It will turn again. I don’t know when, but it will.”
Democrats hoping to revive their party’s fortunes recognize that there are few quick fixes.
“Sometimes you wake up and the currents have shifted and nobody had even noticed,” said Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke, a Democrat who previously served in the state Senate. “It kind of happened that way for Democrats.”
Democrats are looking to several areas to build out their diminished ranks. They include: (continue reading)