Liberals across the country are challenging fellow Democrats on guns in primaries, opening up divisions within the party on one of the most volatile issues of 2016.

In the Ohio Senate primary, a young city councilman is attacking former Gov. Ted Strickland, a popular Democrat who once touted National Rifle Association support. In the Las Vegas suburbs, four Democrats are racing to see who is more anti-gun, including one candidate who renounced his NRA membership. In central Florida — a pro-gun area — a rising star in the Democratic Party is under scrutiny for votes like one that prevented companies from banning guns from their parking lots.


The new wave of attention to this issue from the left, which has watched closely as Hillary Clinton embraced gun control from the bully pulpit of a presidential campaign, signals a strategic shift for Democrats in some parts of the country. The party once let its moderate members off the hook on gun-related votes, understanding that Democrats from swing districts needed to hew closer to the NRA’s positions in order to survive politically.

Rep. Robin Kelly, a Chicago Democrat whose first race for Congress in 2013 focused on guns, credits the new power of the issue for her place in the House. “It helped that my opponents were ‘A’ rated by NRA,” Kelly said in an interview. “If we were all ‘F’ rated [by the NRA], maybe, who knows what would’ve happened.”

“It’s now a wedge issue, not just between Democrats and Republicans, but between Democrats, over who can be the strongest on this issue,” said Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the grass-roots arm of an advocacy group backed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Everytown for Gun Safety.

While Democratic voters are virtually all-in supporting stricter gun laws — 76 percent back such legislation, the latest CBS/New York Times poll found — candidates like Strickland built their records when the issue was less of a litmus test in the party. Now, with gun violence at the front of Democrats’ minds, old votes and positions are coming back to haunt candidates with records that once fit loosely within the Democratic Party.

Strickland compiled an NRA-friendly voting record in the House of Representatives, and the group endorsed him for governor over Republican John Kasich in 2010. But Strickland’s position shifted after the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012. He has spoken in favor of the universal background check bill introduced soon after. “He would have voted for it in 2013,” said Jennifer Donohue, an Ohio Democratic Party spokeswoman. “He continues to support it today.”

According to Strickland opponent P.G. Sittenfeld’s campaign, Strickland “has now experienced an election-year conversion on the subject of guns,” said Dale Butland, Sittenfeld's campaign spokesman. “Ohio Democrats will have to decide in March if that conversion is sincere or merely politically expedient.”

A House candidate in Nevada, former state House Speaker John Oceguera, worked to build up his pro-gun credentials before a 2012 run for Congress. The Democrat is running again in 2016 but singing a different tune: Oceguera said he was “fairly pro-gun” in the past, but he thought “enough was enough” when Congress voted down a pair of gun-control measures a day after the San Bernardino attacks. Oceguera then renounced his NRA membership. Another candidate in a four-way primary, state Sen. Ruben Kihuen, recently wrote a letter urging his state legislative colleagues to ban people on the terrorism watch list from buying guns, a popular proposal that nevertheless failed in Congress recently.

In central Florida, near where George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin in 2012, two Democrats are already fighting over their gun-safety bona fides. State Sen. Darren Soto, long mentioned as a future Democratic star, earned an “A” rating from the NRA in 2012. His record in the state Legislature includes a controversial vote regarding leaving guns in workplace parking lots, a measure that was opposed by Disney and other major Florida corporations.

One of Soto’s current opponents for Congress, former Alan Grayson aide Susannah Randolph, said Soto told constituents he would “vote like a strong Democrat,” but when he got to Tallahassee, “he got swept up into a go along, get along. … That’s not understanding the real world consequence of your vote, and that’s disturbing.”

Soto’s campaign countered Randolph’s assertion, saying that he supports expanding background checks for gun sales and banning sales to those on the federal no-fly list. “I stand for common sense gun reform and hope to bring that common sense to Washington,” Soto said in a statement.

The candidates who once got “A” ratings from the NRA might be the most exposed in today’s Democratic Party, but many more in the party have compiled records featuring a stray vote or two that could cause them trouble in a contested primary race.

Examples include Emily Cain, a former state legislator running for Congress in northern Maine, who supported a bill allowing state employees to carry concealed weapons in vehicles on state property in 2012. Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a one-time Republican now running for Congress as a Democrat, has renounced any number of former conservative positions — but he did sign the guns-in-parking-lots bill that Soto supported. And when federal judges ordered Illinois to do away with its concealed-carry ban in 2013, many Democrats voted for the new concealed-carry law replacing it, including state Sen. Michael Noland, now running for Congress.

Candidates with checkered records on guns will still be able to explain their choices, but they’ll have to do it delicately, said Martha McKenna, a Democratic consultant, who compared the shift in public opinion to gay marriage.

“I think candidates who carry ‘A’ ratings from the NRA into a race, but now have a more middle-of-the-road opinion on guns, are representative of where our country is,” McKenna said. “The country is changing. … Candidates have an opportunity to do that as well, if they handle it the right way.”

“It depends on their overall record,” said one national Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to discuss primaries. “So if it’s one issue or one vote with a reasonable explanation, that’s one thing, but if it’s part of a larger pattern, of a conservative versus liberal voting record, then it’s a problem.”

In recent elections, a new generation of gun-control groups has shown its willingness to spend money pressing this issue. In 2012, a super PAC funded by Bloomberg spent millions of dollars to defeat a gun-rights supporter, Rep. Joe Baca, in a Democrat-versus-Democrat race. Everytown for Gun Safety spent $2.2 million this fall on ads backing two Democratic state Senate candidates in Virginia, though the group has not yet settled on a strategy for the fall.

"We're watching what candidates are saying on guns and we'll decide whether or not it makes sense to engage in the primary or for the general,” said Erika Soto Lamb, communications director of Everytown for Gun Safety.

Americans for Responsible Solutions, the advocacy group founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, spent about $10 million on ballot initiatives and House and Senate races in 2014, and ARS will play again in 2016. “We’re evaluating a number of races at all levels,” said Mark Prentice, the group’s communications director.

