Meet the Democrats tacking right while their party shifts left

[Geee]

Politico:

Democrats are running as unabashed progressives to keep the White House and retake the Senate. But when it comes to expanding their thin ranks of governors, they’re touting something else entirely: support for gun rights, fiscal conservatism, homespun rural values — even suing the Obama administration and criticizing Hillary Clinton.

 

The Democrats in this year’s top gubernatorial races are running in a red-state parallel universe compared to the blue-tinged presidential and Senate map. In Indiana, Missouri, Montana and West Virginia, their candidates are trying to outrun long-term political changes as well as 2016 polls where Donald Trump still holds a presidential advantage, despite his struggles nationally.

 

Democratic candidates’ conservative positions will be key as the party seeks to add to its current total of 18 governors, down from 29 in 2009. Early polls show pickups in Indiana and purple North Carolina are strong possibilities. But to gain ground, Democratic gubernatorial candidates must also protect governor’s mansions they already hold in red states, where they have to convince voters to ticket-split with Donald Trump, the same way Republican senators are trying to peel off Clinton voters in state after state right now.

“I cannot be a supporter of Hillary Clinton,” said Jim Justice, the coal billionaire-turned Democratic candidate for governor of West Virginia, in a radio interview Monday morning. Justice’s reasoning comes straight from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Republican songbook: “The reason I can’t be is her position on coal is diametrically, completely wrong in many, many different ways.”

In spite of his stumbles in the polls, many of the key states in the gubernatorial map are still Trump country.