The Supreme Court. (AP/Dana Verkouteren)
The recent Supreme Court decisions have made a lot of us feel all that more determined to win as many seats as possible this November. An alternate timeline, one where Mitch McConnell didn’t have the votes to block Merrick Garland’s nomination, is devastatingly easy to imagine.
Sometimes I hear that Democrats shouldn’t talk about the Supreme Court as a reason to vote in November because it is an issue that motivates the right as much as the left. Well, I’m going to ignore that. It is a supremely (ahem) important reason to fight like the dickens to take the Senate.
Now, we have many advantages as we try to flip the House, and almost no advantages as we attempt to do the same in the Senate. The Republicans are only defending 9 seats in the Senate, while we are defending 26. That said, there IS a path for us to take the Senate. If we defend and hang onto all of our Senate seats, AND flip just 2 Republican seats, the Senate is ours. McConnell becomes a minority leader and is no longer able to make ANY judicial decisions.
The only way this happens is if we really boost our turnout in November. You’ve heard me say this before, but Democrats have a bad habit of not showing up at midterms. Here’s how much our turnout dropped off in 2010, and the chart looks eerily similar for 2014.
Here’s a look at what could have happened if the Democrats had been in power and were able to fill Justice Scalia’s seat: How Democrats missed a chance to reshape the Supreme Court for a generation.
So much is at stake and the Supreme Court is critically important to moving the country in the direction we want. And the rumors keep swirling that Justice Kennedy may retire. Let’s not let another opportunity pass us by.
Register people to vote. Talk to them about the importance of these midterm elections. Vote. And help others get to the polls.
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Categories: Explainers
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