President Barack Obama made headlines Monday when comments he recently made in a podcast with his former senior adviser David Axelrod went public.
In the podcast, Obama said that if he was able to run for president again, he probably would have won a third term and he definitely would have defeated President-elect Donald Trump in a general election.
And while many agree that Obama's popularity with Democrats, progressives and a large portion of Americans could potentially have catapulted him to another victory, it's clear that Obama has been a huge hindrance to Democrats.
In fact, according to the latest stats, under Obama's watch, more than 1,000 Democrats — between state legislatures, governorships and congressional races — have lost their seats. All the while, Obama regularly touts the number of jobs created during his presidency, most of which have not been full-time.
But the number he routinely forgets is 1,030 — the number of Democrats who have lost their job in politics under Obama.
South Carolina state Senator Vincent Sheheen, who lost twice to South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the battle for the S.C. governorship, told the Associated Press that Obama's presidency has been especially hard on grassroots Democrats.
"What's happened on the ground is that voters have been punishing Democrats for eight solid years — it's been exhausting," he said. "If I was talking about a local or state issue, voters would always lapse back into a national topic: Barack Obama."
When Obama won the presidency, his election was heralded as a moment of Democratic dominance - the crashing of a conservative wave that had swept the country since the dawn of the Reagan era.
Democrats believed that the coalition of young, minority and female voters who swept Obama into the White House would usher in something new: an ascendant Democratic majority that would ensure party gains for decades to come.
The coalition, it turns out, was Obama's alone.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
