After their party’s shocking White House defeat, top Democrats are shifting their efforts to rebuild political power by focusing on a series of governors’ races and redistricting legal battles.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Rep. Nancy Pelosi have been quietly courting major party donors during a series of weekend trips to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and New York in an effort to convince them to channel more funding to local and state elections — with a particular focus on the next generation of governors who will oversee redistricting around the 2020 Census — as well as legal challenges to gerrymandered congressional districts.
It’s the start of a routine they plan to keep in the lead up to the 2018 election.
“I don’t care who the president of the United States is, it doesn’t matter in the sense that, if we don’t have governors to stop these horrible maps, they’re going to pass a lot of this stuff at the state level,” said McAuliffe, a Democrat who finishes his term in January.
Originally published by USA Today.
