Schumer promises better outreach to blue-collar voters
Washington -- In his brief victory lap Wednesday as the incoming Senate minority leader, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer made clear Democrats would cede no ground to Republicans in courting blue-collar voters in rural and Rust Belt regions.
"We will unite our caucus and speak to the blue-collar worker in West Virginia, and Michigan, as well as the people who live along the coasts," Schumer, 65, said after emerging from a closed-door party-caucus meeting in which Democrats anointed him as minority leader in place of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who is retiring.
Schumer's remarks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol amounted to a rebuke to prevailing Democratic Party wisdom on presidential elections: Building a narrow path to victory through the "Obama coalition" of sometimes-overlapping groups of minorities, the LGBT community, women, liberals, and college grads.
Since President-elect Donald Trump's Election Day win, Democrats have scratched their heads over how the party of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which won the hearts and minds of the American working class in the 1930s and 1940s, could have failed so miserably in traditional Democratic blue-collar strongholds.
Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Schumer-promises-better-outreach-to-blue-collar-10619596.php