Could the Russia investigation cause blowback for Democrats?

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Democrats fear Russia probe blowback

'We need to talk about what people think about when they wake up in the morning, and it’s not Russia,' said one strategist.

 

By DAVID SIDERS

08/05/2017 07:34 AM EDT

 

ALISO VIEJO, Calif. — Democrats are increasingly conflicted about how forcefully to press the issue of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Fearful of alienating voters who appear more concerned about the economy and health care, Democrats campaigning in districts across the country are de-emphasizing Russia in their rhetoric — and some are warning that a persistent focus on the Russia investigation could backfire.

“In the races where I’m working, I think voters think that Russia is important and that the questions need to get answered,” Bill Burton, a veteran Democratic consultant, said at a political convention this past weekend. “But they’re mostly sick of hearing about it, and they want to hear politicians talk about things that are more directly important in their lives.”

In a state that is critical to the party’s efforts to retake the House, Darry Sragow, a Democratic strategist whose California Target Book handicaps races in California, called Russia a “distraction” and said Democrats “are going to be in deep, deep trouble if they don’t start talking about what voters care about.”

“We need to talk about what people think about when they wake up in the morning, and it’s not Russia,” Sragow said. “The more we talk about stuff that voters don’t truly care about in their daily lives … it confirms that the Democratic Party’s brain has been eaten by the elites in Washington who have been sitting fat and happy for a lot of years while working Americans have lost their jobs and lost confidence in the future.”

Public polling suggests the electorate is deeply suspicious of Trump’s ties to Russia — but also tired of the months-long inquiry into possible collusion between the president’s campaign and Russia. According to a Quinnipiac University Poll released this week, 63 percent of American voters believe Moscow interfered in the 2016 election, and in a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll last month, more than half of voters said it was inappropriate for Donald Trump Jr. to meet with an attorney linked to the Russian government.

But a plurality of voters in the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll said Congress should not seek to impeach Trump. An earlier Harvard-Harris Poll found nearly two-thirds of American voters say investigations into Trump and Russia are hurting the country.

In that polling, wary Democrats see shades of 1998, when Republicans were widely believed to have overreached on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, losing five House seats in the midterm elections.

“Obviously, you don’t know how everything’s going to come out and what cycles we’re going to go through with the independent counsel and the report,” said Mark Penn, the Harvard-Harris Poll’s co-director and former adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton. “But if you were to ask me as of today, Democrats are doing a lot better on health care than they’re doing on Russia … There’s a risk that they repeat ‘98, that the Republicans create a campaign on issues and [Democrats] get tagged too much with only being about negative arguments.”

 

read more at: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/05/democrats-trump-russia-blowback-241346

 

I agree with the point of this article. There's only so much Democrats get out of talking about Russia. If Democrats overplay their hand like 'cough' ......   Maxine Waters  ........ 'cough' then Democrats aren't likely to gain much in the 2018 midterms. The law of diminishing returns very much applies to this case.