The two most powerful components of the democratic message have been not trop defeat trop troptad and managing cobid. The american public does not want to hear about cobid after a year and a half. And running against trump when it's a mid romney type just did not seem genuine to a lot of people. Terry mc a McAuliffe in virginia was essentially begging congress to pass the interstructure bill because he thought that would have helped. If washington had passed some of these bills, the democrats would have atleast a positive case to make. But they didn't really have that.