James Thompson may not have won the special election in Kansas’ 4th Congressional District this week, but his campaign and the result were a victory nonetheless. Daily Kos political director David Nir joined Rachel Maddow Wednesday night to talk about the special elections in Kansas, Montana, and Georgia and what they mean going into the 2018 midterm elections. Most importantly, he talked about you, the Daily Kos readers, and the incredible impact you are having on these races.
Thank you, Daily Kos readers! Watch the video below, give yourselves a round of applause, and then let’s get to work!
MADDOW: In Georgia, there's Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price's old seat. He won that district in November by over 20 points, but Trump barely won that district by less than two. Is that winnable?
Republicans have launched many attack ads now against leading Democratic candidate in that race Jon Ossoff, who has raised a startling $8.3 million for that race, which is an astonishing amount of money for a congressional election anywhere.
Whether or not the Democratic Party itself gets it together to contest these special congressional elections, the Democratic base is freaking fired up about trying to win these seats. How realistic is that enthusiasm?
Joining us now is David Nir. He's political director for Daily Kos and publisher of Daily Kos Elections. Daily Kos, I should tell you, helped raise a majority of Jon Ossoff's campaign donations in Georgia sixth, and a big chunk of what was raised from outside the state in Kansas.
David, it's nice to see you. Thanks for being here.
NIR: Pleasure to be back.
MADDOW: So, how do you view Kansas last night?
NIR: I think that Republicans should be very worried about that result. It should have been an utter blowout for them. It should never have been close. And the fact that we're even talking about it at all speaks to the huge grassroots enthusiasm that made that election close in the first place, and there are a lot of much more vulnerable Republicans in much more at risk-seats who are going to be up for re-election next year. If they continue on as they have with Donald Trump, there's a huge chance that GOP loses the House.
MADDOW: Which is almost—something you couldn't even imagine talking about in any realistic terms, you know, even before the presidential election I think. People it felt like the House would be out of reach.
The Democratic Party itself seems to be getting increasingly enthusiastic about that race next week in Georgia. Do you think they should also be more involved in Montana, potentially in South Carolina, and some of these other races that are going to come up in red states?
NIR: I think that it's definitely all hands on deck time, and I think, as you said, it's that grassroots enthusiasm that has just been absolutely through the roof. We saw it with the Ossoff donations, but we have also seen it with huge fundraising hauls from small donations in Montana as well, where Democrat Rob Quist has raised over a million dollars.
And what I like to say is follow the small money. That's where stuff is really happening and Republicans should be afraid.
MADDOW: In Montana, it's interesting because Montana—that's it's one congressional district but it's the whole state—and Montana has been very happy to elect statewide Democratic candidates. They've had a Democratic governor for a decade now, more than a decade. Jon Tester has been re-elected twice—been re-elected for that Senate seat there.
It seems—yes, you can look at Montana and say Donald Trump won there by a lot, but that seems like very much reachable goal for the Democrats if they could sort of come up with a big push for it.
NIR: I definitely agree with that. Montana is certainly in reach, and also Republicans nominated a candidate who's a very out of touch one-percenter while the Democrat is this very popular folk musician running a populist campaign. It's almost the perfect matchup that you'd want in a state like that, and it could definitely be in play.
MADDOW: David, the last time you and I talked—one of the things we discussed was a question of whether or not there is a split between the Democratic Party and its activist base, is personified more than anybody I think by "Daily Kos" and by your community there. Is this a fight on the Democratic side now?
NIR: I don't feel it that way. I feel that we at Daily Kos, we like to lead by example, and that's why we made these endorsements, especially the early endorsement of Jon Ossoff, where we infused a whole bunch of money into his campaign and got him a lot of attention and it's been this amazing feedback loop leading to that $8 million haul that you mentioned.
And I think that people are taking what we do seriously and taking what the grassroots is doing seriously and I feel surprisingly unified for the Democratic Party for sure.
MADDOW: David Nir, political director for Daily Kos publisher of Daily Kos Elections—David, it's nice to see you. Thanks for being here.
NIR: Thank you, Rachel.