{"id":791,"date":"2018-03-25T19:40:03","date_gmt":"2018-03-25T23:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=791"},"modified":"2018-03-25T19:40:48","modified_gmt":"2018-03-25T23:40:48","slug":"gun-marches-keep-republicans-on-defense-in-midterm-races","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=791","title":{"rendered":"Gun Marches Keep Republicans on Defense in Midterm Races"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0ALEXANDER BURNS<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>JONATHAN MARTIN\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/span>

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Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, a Republican who has criticized President Trump, in Los Angeles last week. He warned on Sunday that voters \u201cdo want changes\u201d on gun policy.<\/span>\u00a0Credit<\/span>Damian Dovarganes\/Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The passionate gun-control rallies that brought out large crowds around the country over the weekend signaled that gun violence is not going away as an issue in the 2018 midterm elections and raised the prospect that Republican candidates might be pushed mainly on the defensive on gun issues for the first time in decades.<\/p>\n

The gun debate could play out very differently in House and Senate races, as Republicans strain to save suburban congressional districts where gun control is popular and Democrats defend Senate seats in red states where the Second Amendment is sacrosanct.<\/p>\n

But across the landscape of midterm races, Republican and Democratic leaders say the gun issue appears to have become a potent rallying point for voters opposed to President Trump and fed up with what they see as Washington\u2019s indifference to mass shootings. The\u00a0scale of demonstrations over the weekend<\/a>\u00a0was reminiscent of the Women\u2019s March, earlier in Mr. Trump\u2019s presidency, and underscored the intense energy of activists on the left ahead of the fall campaign.<\/p>\n

Republicans have already been struggling to keep their footing in densely populated suburbs where Mr. Trump is unpopular and the National Rifle Association is an object of widespread scorn. The gun issue appears likely to deepen Republicans\u2019 problems in these areas, further cleaving moderate, pocketbook-minded suburban voters from the party\u2019s more hard-line rural base and raising the risks for Republicans in swing House districts around the country.<\/p>\n

But gun control may be a complicated issue for Democrats, too, because of the makeup of the Senate races on the ballot in November. If Democrats have a path to capturing the House through mainly moderate, well-educated districts, they are also defending Senate seats in strongly conservative states, like West Virginia and North Dakota, and in Republican-leaning states like Missouri and Indiana, where pro-gun positions have long been safe political terrain.<\/p>\n

Still, several prominent Republicans warned on Sunday that the party could end up alienating groups that tend to vote for candidates to the right of center, if they are seen as indifferent to the rising outcry around guns. In an atmosphere of frustration with Washington, inaction on guns could add to voters\u2019 anger at entrenched lawmakers there.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Gov. John Kasich, Republican of Ohio,\u00a0warned in a CNN interview<\/a>\u00a0on Sunday that voters \u201cdo want changes\u201d on gun policy and Republicans were ignoring them at their peril.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople should absolutely be held accountable at the ballot box,\u201d said Mr. Kasich, a critic of Mr. Trump who is contemplating a run for president in 2020.<\/p>\n

It is not only the Republican Party\u2019s dwindling moderate wing that sees danger in the gun issue. Dan Eberhart, an energy executive and major conservative donor, said Republicans risked driving away suburban voters if they did not do more to defy the N.R.A.<\/p>\n

Mr. Eberhart pointed to Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, a Republican with an A-plus N.R.A. rating for supporting the organization\u2019s agenda. Mr. Scott, who is contemplating a bid for the Senate seat held by the Democrat Bill Nelson,\u00a0signed incremental new gun regulations<\/a>\u00a0after last month\u2019s shooting in Parkland, Fla., over the N.R.A.\u2019s objections.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans are going to have to move a little to get 51 percent-plus in elections and the N.R.A. will have to deal with it,\u201d Mr. Eberhart said in an email. \u201cThe N.R.A. is really out of step with suburban G.O.P. voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Democrats have little hope the demonstrations will lead quickly to legislation, they predict the broad-based outpouring of protest will increase pressure on Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis wasn\u2019t Democrats only,\u201d Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, said of the protests. \u201cThis was people just sick and tired of a ruling party that refuses to take action on something so morally urgent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Public opinion polls show powerful support for a range of gun measures, with overwhelming support for stricter background checks for gun purchasers and a smaller majority favoring an outright ban on assault-style weapons. A\u00a0Fox News poll<\/a>\u00a0conducted last week found that three in five voters supported a ban on military-style weapons, while about nine in 10 supported universal background checks.<\/p>\n

But the same poll found scant optimism among voters that Congress would act in accordance with their preferences. While a majority of respondents called it \u201cvery\u201d or \u201cextremely\u201d important that Congress pass gun legislation, only about a fifth of voters thought it was highly likely Congress would act.<\/p>\n

The doubters are probably correct: There is relatively little time left on the congressional calendar this year, and the Republicans who control the House and Senate have shown no great appetite for tackling gun control. The $1.3 trillion spending bill that Mr. Trump signed on Friday included modest school safety measures and improvements to the background-checks system, but it did not include a number of more ambitious and popular measures, like raising the age requirement for purchasers of assault weapons.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And while the\u00a0Justice Department announced last week<\/a>\u00a0that it would try to follow through on a promise to ban so-called bump stocks through regulation, Mr. Trump has not indicated that he intends to take any further executive action to address the issue.<\/p>\n

Against a backdrop of plodding debate in Washington, a number of Democratic candidates in important races have already made prominent appeals to voters on the issue of gun violence, combining support for new gun restrictions with rhetorical denunciations of the N.R.A.<\/p>\n

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Steve Sisolak, a Democratic candidate for governor in Nevada, has vowed to \u201ctake on the N.R.A.\u201d<\/span>Credit<\/span>Erik Verduzco\/Las Vegas Review-Journal, via Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Several of the Democrats campaigning most assertively on firearm regulation are also competing in areas recently afflicted by gun massacres. In Nevada, Steve Sisolak, a leading Democratic candidate for governor,\u00a0vowed in his first television commercial<\/a>\u00a0to \u201ctake on the N.R.A.\u201d A member of the Clark County Commission, Mr. Sisolak was among the most visible officials responding to the mass shooting in Las Vegas in October, which left 58 people dead and hundreds wounded.<\/p>\n

In Colorado, Mike Johnston, a state senator who helped enact new gun restrictions after the 2012 Aurora, Colo., movie theater massacre, also made guns the centerpiece of his first commercial. Citing his record after Aurora, Mr. Johnston pledged to \u201cban military-style weapons\u201d and \u201cstop the gun lobby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democratic congressional candidate in South Florida, in a district not far from Parkland, said voters were fired up both because of their horror at mass shootings and their outrage at congressional inaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a symbol of everything that is wrong right now, that is happening in Washington, D.C.,\u201d said Ms. Mucarsel-Powell, who is challenging Representative Carlos Curbelo, a Miami Republican.<\/p>\n

Ms. Mucarsel-Powell, who marched on Saturday in a rally against gun violence in Key West, has aired television commercials describing her personal experience with gun violence: When she was 24, her father was shot and killed in Ecuador.<\/p>\n

Other Democrats have been more timid on gun issues, particularly in more rural and heavily white, working-class districts where broad gun rights are more popular. When Democrats\u00a0won an upset victory in a Pennsylvania special election\u00a0<\/a>this month<\/a>, in a heavily conservative congressional district outside Pittsburgh, they did so by nominating\u00a0a distinctly moderate candidate, Conor Lamb<\/a>, who declined to back any new gun regulations after the Parkland massacre.<\/p>\n

Val DiGiorgio, the chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, said that while Democrats won that special election, the race had shown \u201cthe passion of Second Amendment supporters.\u201d But Mr. DiGiorgio said voters were plainly looking for remedies to the problem of gun violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear that Americans on all sides of the debate are looking for solutions,\u201d Mr. DiGiorgio said.<\/p>\n

But the energy in the base of the Democratic Party is with those who favor gun restrictions.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0the colorful signs and pleading speeches<\/a>\u00a0of the students drew attention on Saturday, state and local Democratic parties across the country also used the marches to register voters and sign up volunteers.<\/p>\n

In Florida, volunteers circulated at protests in over 30 cities, passing out \u201ccommit to vote\u201d cards that the party can later use for voter turnout purposes. And in Virginia, Democrats descended on the cities where buses were departing to the Washington march to register voters.<\/p>\n

The efforts were not just confined to large liberal and swing states. In Columbia, S.C., the local Democratic Party used the march in the state\u2019s capital to sign up voters for what could be a competitive governor\u2019s race there this fall.<\/p>\n

The liberal group Indivisible also took advantage of the protests to kick off its\u00a0congressional recess lobbying efforts<\/a>, distributing kits nationally that included potential town hall questions and forms activists could use to contact lawmakers.<\/p>\n

For Republicans, the worst fear may be that the marches over the weekend indicate an emerging coalition, on gun issues and more, between Democrats who favor liberal policies across the board, and moderate swing voters who strongly oppose Mr. Trump and much of his party\u2019s cultural agenda.<\/p>\n

Jim Hobart, a Republican pollster, said the gun control marches illustrated the enormous energy of the Democratic base and could be a symptom of generational changes in the electorate that Republicans will have to grapple with.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we have seen in special elections, Democratic enthusiasm is already very high and the gun issue just adds to that,\u201d Mr. Hobart said, noting that students in his hometown Atlanta had traveled by bus for 10 hours to join the march in Washington. \u201cThese same students are much more likely to not just vote, but volunteer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0ALEXANDER BURNS\u00a0and\u00a0JONATHAN MARTIN\u00a0MARCH 25, 2018 Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, a Republican who has criticized President Trump, in Los Angeles last week. He warned on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":792,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-politics","category-weapons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2018-03-25_19-39-07.jpg?fit=763%2C506&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8VBh7-cL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":755,"url":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=755","url_meta":{"origin":791,"position":0},"title":"Thousands gather in Washington, other US cities for anti-gun protests","author":"Donnie","date":"March 24, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"By Ashraf Khalil and Calvin Woodward\u00a0ASSOCIATED PRESS\u00a0\u00a0MARCH 24, 2018 NICHOLAS KAMM\/FP\/GETTY IMAGES Ralliers arrived for the March For Our Lives event against gun violence in Washington on Saturday. WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Summoned to action by student survivors of the Florida school shooting, hundreds of thousands of teenagers and their supporters\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Domestic Terrorism"","block_context":{"text":"Domestic Terrorism","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?cat=17"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2018-03-24_14-41-17.jpg?fit=786%2C478&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2018-03-24_14-41-17.jpg?fit=786%2C478&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2018-03-24_14-41-17.jpg?fit=786%2C478&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2018-03-24_14-41-17.jpg?fit=786%2C478&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":153,"url":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=153","url_meta":{"origin":791,"position":1},"title":"The True Source of the N.R.A.\u2019s Clout: Mobilization, Not Donations","author":"Donnie","date":"February 24, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The True Source of the N.R.A.\u2019s Clout: Mobilization, Not Donations By\u00a0ERIC LIPTON\u00a0and\u00a0ALEXANDER BURNSFEB. 24, 2018 Photo A gun store in Florida. The N.R.A. has advanced a broad agenda in the state, including making it easier to carry concealed weapons.\u00a0CreditLynne Sladky\/Associated Press WASHINGTON \u2014 Few places have seen the National Rifle\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weapons"","block_context":{"text":"Weapons","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?cat=19"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-03-01_13-50-22.jpg?fit=762%2C509&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-03-01_13-50-22.jpg?fit=762%2C509&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-03-01_13-50-22.jpg?fit=762%2C509&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-03-01_13-50-22.jpg?fit=762%2C509&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":804,"url":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=804","url_meta":{"origin":791,"position":2},"title":"To Reclaim the House, Democrats Need to Flip 24 G.O.P. 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