Republicans Suburban Wipeout Gives Democrats a New Pressure Point against Tax Reform
By Jim Newell at Slate
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/11/08/after_virginia_rout_democrats_pressure_suburban_republicans_on_tax_reform.html
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Schumer, always in search of a new angle through which to squeeze his opponents, tried Wednesday to use that suburban rage as a pressure point through which to bury Republicans’ tax plan. “Who is hurt the most in this [tax reform] bill? Suburban communities,” Schumer told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.
“Which communities were most against the Republican candidate, Gillespie? Where was there the greatest change in vote, in terms of turnout and percentage? Suburban communities," he said. “Middle-class suburbs, upper-middle-class suburbs, are the places that would be crushed by [tax reform] bill.”
Schumer cited two county executive races in the New York suburbs of Westchester and Nassau that flipped to the Democrats on Tuesday night as proof of the impending suburban doom for Republicans. In 2009, the “mirror image” of Tuesday’s race, Democrats lost both of those races.
Few figures in Washington seem to enjoy political gamesmanship as much as Schumer, who giddily read through exit data from various Virginia counties. Schumer was chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee during the 2006 cycle when Democrats retook the Senate. And though he never served as Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair during his lengthy tenure in the House, he seemed ready and willing to take the job should anyone ask.
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