Hillary Clinton made clear what most have known for some time on Sunday: she will seek the presidency again in 2016.
Regardless of my own feelings on Clinton, she is the overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic nomination. A lot can happen in 18 months, but in my eyes, she is also a slight favorite in the general election against whoever wins the Republican nomination.
But if Clinton wins, she confronts a political landscape structurally hostile to the Democratic Party and progressive change. This dynamic must change is she wants to achieve anything beyond the incremental and infrequent victories that Barack Obama has been limited to since the 2010 elections.
Consider the federal level.
Republicans control both houses of Congress. In the House of Representatives, the GOP has its biggest majority (244-188) since before the New Deal. This majority is almost certainly safe in the short and medium-term. The Democratic coalition is made up largely of liberal who voters are inefficiently clustered in metropolitan areas that are solidly blue.
Republican state-level gerrymandering has fortified this advantage, packing these voters into a handful of districts while most Republican incumbents face little general election opposition. Democrats would need to win the national House popular vote by between 6 and 8 percentage points just to win a bare majority in the House.
Despite wide popular support, the GOP House blocked gun control, immigration reform, and a federal minimum wage increase.
Democrats are in a better position to win back the Senate in 2016. They are defending no seats in states Mitt Romney won in 2012 while Republicans will have to hold seats in Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. Still, after the GOP’s nine-seat (!) gain in 2014, odds are no better than 50/50 that Democrats can retake the majority. And if they do, Senate Democrats would have to fully eliminate the filibuster and prevent any defections from what would be a small majority in order to pass meaningful legislation through the upper chamber.
The Supreme Court also threatens liberal policies. Citizens United v. FEC struck down critical campaign finance laws. NFIB v. Sebelius enabled the states to reject the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion. Shelby County v. Holder weakened the Voting Rights Act and empowered voter suppression. King v. Burwell could revoke the health care subsidies of around 10 million Americans this summer.
Until one of the five members of the Roberts-Alito-Thomas-Scalia-Kennedy bloc is replaced by a liberal justice, these reactionary decisions will continue. The federal judiciary below the Supreme Court tilts right as well, a legacy of Reagan and Bush 41/43 appointees that Obama has only started to reverse. (4/12, 8:42 PM Update: This is outdated and wrong. Since Senator Reid invoked the nuclear option in 2013, Democratic appointees now outnumber Republicans.)
The states present an even gloomier picture for Democrats. Republicans have unified control (governorship, both state houses) in 24 states compared to just 6 for the Democrats. Democrats have lost 11 governors and 913 state legislative seats in the Obama-era. This is important because power is decentralized in the U.S. Republicans have used that power to reject Medicaid, limit voting and reproductive rights, cut funding for public education and social programs, and weaken organized labor.
Getting back to Hillary, there is a paragraph in yesterday’s New York Times story about how she will frame her candidacy in comparison to Obama that is concerning:
Walking a fine line, Mrs. Clinton will try to present herself as more capable of working across the aisle than the current administration, without directly criticizing Mr. Obama.
This will not work. “Working across the aisle” is euphemism for making policy concessions with no tangible gains.
If she wants to do anything other than deal with gridlock for four years and make progress on the issues she cares about, she will need to mobilize an often disaffected liberal base. That means winning a landslide victory that will put Democrats back in control of Congress. That means keeping the base mobilized during her presidency to maintain that advantage and roll back Republican state-level dominance.
The alternative? We’re just voting for a new face to preside over the frustrating status quo.
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