Gerald Seib: How Democrats Lost Voters to Trump and Might Win Them Back
A WSJ piece. Seib is a smart commentator who does not follow the rabid way of the rest of the Journal's columnists.
Hard to read but I think that he raises valid points:
Democratic leaders are calling their new agenda “A Better Deal,” and it’s heavy on populist economics: a higher minimum wage; more working-class access to government health programs; and expanded broadband for rural areas.
A deeper look back at the 2016 outcome suggests that approach is at least on the right track. The key for Democrats isn’t simply to turn out more young, liberal voters, or to win over Republicans who don’t like President Trump. Rather, Democrats need to win back working-class voters who defected to Mr. Trump. To do that, many in the party believe, Democrats will have to craft a more effective economic message as well as convince skeptical voters that the party isn’t locked into an unpopular Washington status quo.
Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, finds in a new report that about six million people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 abandoned the Democrats to vote for Mr. Trump in 2016. That’s twice as many as voters who went for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012 and then flipped to Mrs. Clinton four years later.
The voters who flipped from Mr. Obama to Mr. Trump are key. But why did they leave? Some answers are found in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey released earlier this month that looked at a broad cross-section of counties Mr. Trump carried last year.
(snip)
In these “flip counties” Mrs. Clinton also is personally unpopular; just 30% view her favorably, while 50% have an unfavorable view. Interestingly, though, Sen. Bernie Sanders, who challenged Mrs. Clinton from the left with an antiestablishment populist message, is far more popular there. In the flip counties, 44% have a positive view of Mr. Sanders, while just 29% have a negative view.
(snip)
That suggests Mrs. Clinton, the ultimate representative of the party establishment, was a particularly ill-suited candidate for 2016. It further suggests that a populist economic message of the kind Mr. Sanders brought to the table has resonance in the areas that moved away from the Democrats.
That notion is supported by some more specific findings in the Journal/NBC survey. In the flip counties, more than half said they think the political and economic systems of the country are stacked against them. A whopping 71% said they aren’t confident their children’s generation will have a better life.
(snip)
There also are signs that many voters in this slice of Trump country have impulses that are more Democratic than Republican. Six in 10 say government should be doing more to solve problems, while just 37% say the government is doing too many things. They are slightly more inclined to want Democrats to control Congress than Republicans, and they have positive views overall of Mr. Obama. They don’t like Republicans’ health-care plans.
Mr. Trump won these places with his “America First” economic and cultural messages. But Mrs. Clinton just as surely lost them because she was seen as part of the political establishment in a year of surging antiestablishment sentiment, which Mr. Sanders tapped into quite effectively from within her own party.
These numbers suggest Democrats should be able to recapture this slice of the Trump coalition. They also suggest something else: Don’t be surprised if Republicans try to hold on to those voters in next year’s midterm elections by portraying Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a replica of Mrs. Clinton, an out-of-touch embodiment of a hated political establishment.
Write to Gerald F. Seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-democrats-lost-voters-to-trumpand-might-win-them-back-1500908665
(I think that googling the title can by pass the payment access)
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Michael Steele made Pelosi the issue in 2010 when he wanted Republicans to take the house, never in his wildest imaginings did he think some democrats would also buy what he was selling but some clearly have.
And Pelosi is more hated for her stance on social justice issues , the "corporatist dem" schtick is just cover for underlying cultural resentment against Coastal elites - because you know, in America the real Americans don't live on the coasts, but in middle America - where all the salt of the earth people are...
I supported Hillary, I agreed with her approach. I, too, approach life events on a rational level. My spouse often has to remind me that "life is not logical."
Many voters react on a visceral level. This is how they reacted to Bill Clinton, to Obama and to Trump. Even Junior, I remember how many said that they object to his policy but would not mind having a beer with him.
Hillary, like too many professional women, suffers from trying to stay on message to take things seriously and who suffer one way or the other. I still remember during the 2008 primaries. There were still Obama, Richardson, Hillary and, I think, Edwards. It was a sitting down debate. Before they started the men were shooting the breeze, joking, but Hillary could not afford it.
This is how too many voters still react to women candidates. Why are voters in other countries, including India and Brazil are different, I don't know.
