It will involve finding a middle ground for Democratic candidates running for Congress inn places where Trump squeezed out wins….
The party will NOT be just one thing….
And Joe Biden is probably right…..
The country as a whole….
Is closer to the middle than the right or even the left….
Joe Biden HAS had some of those voters on his side during his eight years as President Obama’s Vice President….They switched 2 years ago….Biden could bring them back for him and down ballot races?
“The white male vote is indispensable, it’s a part of any winning coalition,” said Democratic pollster Ronald Lester, who worked for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. He noted that successful national Democrats perform well with white men, and that includes Barack Obama, whose strength among white men in the Rust Belt helped fuel his White House victories in 2008 and 2012.
Several candidates have jumped in with their own suggestions of how to do that.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who hasn’t said whether he is running, spoke to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in an appearance Friday that seemed designed to show how he could win back white working-class voters. Biden said some of his “sophisticated friends” don’t understand the need to treat laborers with respect.
“How the hell do we get to the place where a lot of you think the rest of the country doesn’t see you, or know you?” Biden asked the mostly male crowd.
When Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, announced his campaign earlier in the week, he said his more centrist approach could appeal to working-class voters like those in his district, which embodies the Rust Belt terrain that Trump won.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said her no-frills style has delivered white Midwestern voters before, while former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, uses his star appeal that helped him in Texas’ well-educated suburbs. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has said his economic populism will bring rural white voters back to the Democratic fold.
Polling makes clear why Democratic are searching for the right messenger.
White men make up typically make up about one-third of the electorate. In 2018, 41 percent of them voted for Democrats, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of the national electorate. While Democrats’ strength among women won headlines and was often credited with Democrats’ strong showing, white men also moved to the Democrats column. VoteCast showed Democrats won the votes of 46% of white male college graduates, a figure that has given some in the party hope.
“The revolt in these suburban districts wasn’t just about white women, it was also about white men,” said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster advising the campaign of former Gov. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo. “Just as there’s been a movement of white, college-educated women, there’s been a movement of white college-educated men.”
That shift is part of a long-term trend.
According to the American National Election Survey, white men without college degrees have consistently supported the GOP over the past two decades, while those with degrees — roughly one-fifth of the 2018 electorate — have increasingly moved toward Democrats. In 1996, when President Bill Clinton overwhelmingly won re-election, he only received 36% of the votes of white male college graduates, according to ANES. Hillary Clinton lost her race in 2016 but won 43% of them.
Strategists generally find that college-educated white men are more moved by social issues and Trump’s violations of political norms, while those without degrees are more concerned about economic issues and like candidates who may shake up the establishment. In Pennsylvania, Democrats have gained ground among both groups since Trump’s election, but some see the college-educated cohort as the most promising….