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Democrats’ Unprecedented Embrace of Gun Control: The party is betting that support for restrictions is more likely to attract moderate voters than turn them off.
This is the new normal in the Democratic Party: Moderate voters not only support gun-control legislation, but have begun to use the issue as a litmus test. In 2010, roughly 20 percent of all federal candidates who received “A” ratings from the National Rifle Association were Democrats; by the 2018 midterms, that number was down to less than 2 percent, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 2013 and largely funded by Bloomberg. Which means that Democrats in 2020 are embracing gun control in an unprecedented way, betting that their support is more likely to attract voters than turn them away—especially in the suburban districts that are quickly becoming central to the party map.
Nowhere has this shift been clearer than at this year’s Democratic convention, which was expressly designed to appeal to a bipartisan viewership and where gun control has been a central focus. On Tuesday, Representative Veronica Escobar of Texas spoke about the 2019 shooting in El Paso that left 23 people dead. A montage about the nation’s growing gun-violence-prevention movement was narrated by Emma González, who survived the Parkland, Florida, high-school shooting in 2018. Former Representative Gabby Giffords of Arizona, who was shot in the head in 2011 and who spent months relearning how to speak, called for reform in a moving speech last night. Bloomberg is likely to make similar calls when he addresses TV audiences tonight.
Four years ago, Hillary Clinton’s campaign welcomed mothers who had lost children to gun violence to speak at her nominating convention, the first remarks of their kind. But there were no such convention segments or panels on gun control as recently as 2012. “What people are seeing is gun safety not only mobilizes, but it also persuades the all-important independent and suburban voters who will likely decide the 2020 election,” says John Feinblatt, Everytown’s president.