Do Democrats actually believe that rewarding Wall Street will help them win re-election?
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“There’s no way that any vote in a red state or a blue state that supports Wall Street like this is a benefit at the polls.”
—Charles Chamberlain, Democracy for America
That key question has been asked with growing frequency in recent days as a relatively large faction of centrist Democrats—led by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.)—has partnered with Republicans in the Senate to advance a deregulatory bill denounced by progressive lawmakers and independent commentators as a giveaway to massive banks and a possible catalyst for the next financial meltdown.
Robert Borasage, co-founder of Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), argued in an interview with The Hill Tuesday that the final vote this week on the bank measure (S.2155) will be a “very significant thing, both symbolically and in substance.”
As the GOP-crafted bill has sailed through the Senate, much of the media coverage has framed Democratic support for the legislation as pragmatism on the part of red-state senators facing tough re-election bids in 2018.
But progressives argue that any vote to relieve Wall Street will harm, not help, Democrats’ chances—and new polling data (pdf) bolsters this view.
“There’s no way that any vote in a red state or a blue state that supports Wall Street like this is a benefit at the polls,” Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, told The Hill. “When you have a [Democratic Sen.] Jon Tester in Montana that votes in the wrong way on an issue like this, he’s hurting his chances for reelection, he’s not helping.”
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