Should Democrats Care to Compete in the Struggling Midwestern Factory Cities?
A report released Tuesday answers this question with an emphatic “yes.” But the fact that it’s being asked at all speaks to the Democratic Party’s still unresolved challenge to win back the more than 2.6 million voters it’s lost since 2012 in places like Ottumwa, Iowa and Scranton, Pennsylvania.
More than five years after Donald Trump primed the white working class in America’s faded industrial heartland, Democrats are still trying to understand what happened and debating whether to seek votes elsewhere. Should they instead try to raise the electoral score in urban areas and suburbs?
Basic electoral math suggests they’re left with little choice: It would be exceedingly difficult for Democrats to win a governing majority without holding onto their Midwestern “blue wall,” and continued erosion in smaller communities would soon see that through. make the future impossible.
During this year’s midterms, Democrats will try to win open senate seats in Ohio and Pennsylvania while hoping they can somehow evict Republican incumbents in Iowa and Wisconsin — all states dotted with places that have been hit. by the effects of global economic and technological change in recent decades.
But there is more at stake than just who exercises political power.
“If fascism and authoritarianism continue to increase in this country,” the authors wrote, “it will be because more voters in the small- and medium-sized provinces of the production belt are fueling its advance.”
An economic shift and a political shift
In Iowa, which holds its primary on Tuesday, the Democratic Party has nearly given up.
Trump won the state by more than eight percentage points in the 2020 presidential election, and this year’s midterm elections predict more woes for Democrats. They have only one of four congressional seats in Iowa and a disappearing number of large offices across the state.
Jasper County, just east of Des Moines, is a prime example of the quintessential factory town arc.
The county was once the center of America’s washing machine industry, but after the closure of a Maytag factory in 2007, unemployment rose to 10 percent, the highest in the state. Barack Obama won the county with 53 percent of the vote in 2008. But 12 years later, Joe Biden lost it to Trump by 22 points.
Iowa could offer just a glimpse of the future of an entire region trending Republican, the new report warns.
Published by a nonprofit called American Family Voices, it was primarily written by Mike Lux, a Democratic strategist and ally of Biden with roots in the region. It builds on research published last fall and highlighted by my colleague Jonathan Martin at the time. The study used polls, focus groups and several hundred interviews and meetings with local officials, political agents and activists, as well as a deep dive into voter records and census data.
The authors have come forward with a richer set of findings to recommend “a message and organizational path forward” for the Democratic Party in the 10 states, 565 counties and nearly 55 million voters they studied.
The poll, conducted by Lake Research Partners, shows a population ravaged by the rising cost of living and suffering from health-related crises. For example, a majority said she or a family member had a chronic health condition. Majorities also said they had personally struggled with disabilities, job loss, mental health issues or addiction.
The political challenge facing Democrats in these communities is great. According to TargetSmart, a Democratic data company hired to work on the project, the Democratic share of the electorate in so-called factory cities shrank from 33 percent to 24 percent from 2012 to 2020, while the Republican share rose to more than 51 percent in the same year. period, of 40 percent.
Voters in this ‘factory city’ demographic, which still make up nearly half of the electorate in those states, often view Democrats as too weak to carry out their economic agenda, and are cynical about politicians’ ability to to assist.
‘Progressive populism’
The report contains nine recommendations, which can be summed up in a call for “progressive populism” to counter the frustration and economic dislocation of many of these voters over politics.
Lux, who has spent much of the past year in the research, said in an interview that “probably the biggest surprise to me is how desperate people are for community.”
Lux, a former labor organizer, said he came out of his conversations believing there was an untapped “hunger” in factory towns to talk about political issues and to “infuse some of the anger and vitriol into a more balanced conversation.”
He recommends that the Democratic Party, unions and progressive activists focus on engaging voters at the center who loathe extremism and are not convinced that the Republican Party has their economic interests in mind.
“This is a challenging mission, as the level of cynicism and discontent of mainstream politics runs deep,” Lux acknowledges in the report.
But with the right amount of “old-fashioned community building,” he argues, voters in factory towns could “form a voting bloc that could become a cornerstone for a revival of the progressive movement.”
What to read
While Democrats around the world are deeply concerned about a series of political warning signs in the run-up to the midterm elections, they have a particular cause for alarm in California, writes Katie Glueck: skyrocketing gas prices.
Mayors of major cities are outraged by the recent spate of mass shootings, but while they often have authority over police forces and social service programs, they say they are largely powerless to implement the gun control measures many consider necessary to prevent more tragedies. Mitch Smith has the story.
Next week, writes Adam Liptak, the Supreme Court may hear the “800-pound gorilla” of election law cases. It is a theory of law that would radically change the way federal elections are conducted by significantly extending the power of state legislators to put electoral rules at odds with state constitutions and to sign congressional cards distorted by partisan gerrymandering. .
how they run
Long Beach mayor wants to go to Washington
The mayor of the Southern California city of Long Beach, who made national headlines for his leadership during the pandemic, has emerged as the frontrunner for an open congressional seat Democrats are expected to win in November.
The mayor, Robert Garcia, was the first Latino and first openly gay person to run Long Beach.
He was one of 17 speakers at the 2020 Democratic National Convention keynote address and made headlines during the pandemic to push for safety measures after his mother and stepfather died of Covid-19. He later opened the Long Beach Convention Center to provide shelter for undocumented children who had arrived at the southern border.
In Tuesday’s primaries, Garcia has the support of Governor Gavin Newsom and several members of the California congressional delegation.
“The problems that existed before the pandemic exist today, but they are just bigger,” Garcia told our colleague Jill Cowan in 2020. “You think about income inequality and homelessness issues, the housing crisis that exists here in California, climate change – all of those are huge.”
Sara Sadhwani, an assistant professor of politics at Pomona College who is a member of the California redistricting commission and who said she did not publicly support a candidate, said Los Angeles often looked to Long Beach as a model for successful policy.
“It appears that his leadership would be both progressive and pragmatic,” Sadhwani said.
Garcia faces several Democratic challengers, the most prominent being Cristina Garcia, who is not related to him.
Cristina Garcia, a member of the State Assembly representing southern Los Angeles County, has built a reputation as an advocate of policies to protect and support women. She sponsored legislation exempting sanitary pads and tampons from sales tax and, as head of the Legislative Women’s Caucus, was a leader in the #MeToo movement in California.
However, her reputation was dented in 2018, when Politico reported that a former staff member had accused her of groping him; he filed a lawsuit against her and the Assembly arguing that he had been mistreated for being a man. In a radio interview for KQED, Garcia said she “never attacked anyone”.
Around the same time, she was also accused of making anti-Asian and homophobic comments. She denied that she had intentionally used abusive language.
Her campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
— Blake & Lea
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