Quo Vadis, Martin?

I watched the election returns come in this past Tuesday night looking for clues as to whether former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley, who backed numerous state and local candidates all across the country through his Win Back Your State PAC, would run for President in 2020.  With the knowledge that Win Back Your State was as much about building up O'Malley nationwide as it was about building up the Democratic base, my metric was simple; if the Democrats did well, he would run, and if they didn't, he would choose not to run.

The result on Tuesday night was mixed.

While the Democrats did gain 32 seats in the House and are likely to gain more as votes are counted and certified, and while they flipped seven governorships, they were less successful with state legislatures, Win Back Your State's main focus.  They gained about three hundred seats, but Republicans still control about three-fifths of the state legislative chambers.  The bright side?  The Democrats go into 2019 controlling the governorship and both legislative houses in fourteen states, a net gain of six.  But that's still far short of what the Democrats need to produce meaningful change at the state level.  O'Malley didn't concentrate his efforts on the U.S. Senate as much as he concentrated on the state legislatures, the governorships, or U.S. House seats, and with good reason; the Senate map favored Republicans from the start, and the GOP may end up adding at least two additional seats.  And Democratic hopes of retaking the Senate may be a long shot for years to come, given the growing Republican power in the smaller states, as Dylan Matthews of Vox.com explains.

And then there's O'Malley's home state of Maryland.  Democrats retained control of the legislature, called the General Assembly, but Republican governor Larry Hogan won re-election and gets another four years to undo O'Malley's legacy.  O'Malley spent practically zero time in his home state, but then the Democrats didn't need his help to maintain control of both houses of the General Assembly.  But former NAACP president Ben Jealous, Hogan's Democratic opponent, sure could have used his help.  O'Malley's decision to keep his distance from Jealous, whom he did not back for the Maryland Democratic gubernatorial nomination, reflects badly on the former governor.  While I suspect that O'Malley did not back Jealous because he believed he was going to lose, some wags have opined that the real reason O'Malley kept his distance from Maryland is because he's still deeply unpopular as an ex-governor, and that his support for Jealous or other Democrats would have hurt rather than helped them.  And truth be told, O'Malley's failure to secure then-Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown's election as his successor in 2014 despite Brown's consistent lead over Hogan in the polls was likely the first blow against his 2016 presidential hopes.  Democratic leaders looking for an alternative to Hillary only had to see the 2014 election results in Maryland - and O'Malley's plummeting approval rating - to shake their heads and look elsewhere.

O'Malley helped Democrats make great strides in state elections, to be sure, but so did other political action committees. Win Back Your State deserves credit for its efforts at building up the party, but other groups will also take credit, diluting O'Malley's stature. 

Also, there are the unknown variables involving O'Malley's competition. All eyes are on Beto O'Rourke possibly running for President in 2020 after his loss in the U.S. Senate race in Texas to Ted Cruz.  There are several other possible candidates, many of whom have been getting the sort of repeated media exposure that O'Malley can only envy.  Of course, Beto may not run, and some high-profile Democrats considering at presidential run, such as Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Kirsten Gillibrand, have embarrassed themselves in the public eye - Harris and Booker with their grandstanding during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings that ended up helping the Supreme Court nominee win confirmation, Gillibrand for her naked power play against Al Franken - while other prospects such as Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are seen as past their prime.

What O'Malley may have going for him this time is something I alluded to in my earlier comments about the 2018 elections.  I noted that progressives who were nominated for office, including Jealous, lost decisively and that the Democrats have been warned not to nominate a progressive presidential candidate.  Except that earlier Democratic efforts at moving to the center - in presidential and down-ballot elections alike - have also fallen short.  O'Malley represents a third alternative, a platform with progressive policies - infrastructure, opposition to the death penalty, expanded homosexual rights, a tough line on guns - with an approach to building consensus and getting things done that centrists can admire.  That third way didn't get any attention when he ran against progressive Bernie Sanders and the centrist Hillary Clinton, but maybe after four years of Donald J. Trump, O'Malley's political philosophy may get another look from rank-and-file Democrats.

In short, O'Malley's chances of running for President in 2020 are, well, 50-50.  My take is that he can still run and he can still win - but it won't be easy. 

So, Governor, are you in, or are you out?  Where are you going? 

I await the answer.