One is solidly Republican and will stay that way; the other leans Democratic. And then there are the in-betweeners.
At Nancy Pelosi’s news conference last week, a reporter asked her about Joe Biden’s comments on his congenial dealings in the senate of the 1970s with the Southern Democrats James O. Eastland and Herman Talmadge, who were both staunch opponents of Civil Rights legislation and racial integration:
There’s been a back‑and‑forth between Vice President Biden and some of the candidates. Do you think that it is helpful to the party to sort of fight that fight over who best represents the party when it comes to sensitivities about race?
“That’s not what this election is about,” Pelosi answered in a severe tone. “This election is about how we connect with the American people, addressing their kitchen table needs.”
Reporters continued to press Pelosi: “What do you think about Vice President Biden’s words, referencing his work with segregationists and talking about his idea of civility?”
She shot back: “I have answered that question, and that’s all I’m going to say.”
The intensity of the exchange shows how determined key Democratic leaders are to keep the party focused on the bread-and-butter issues of jobs, health care and financial stability and to shore up the gains the party made in 2018, especially among whites.
Pelosi’s response illustrates the deep fear among the same leaders that the agenda could shift to issues of race and immigration. These are issues that a cadre of newly elected progressive members of Congress including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley — as well as Democratic presidential candidates like Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, all with warmly enthusiastic followings — have brought to the fore. Race and immigration are just the issues Donald Trump and his Republican allies want to place front and center in 2020.
Underlying this is the recognition by many Democratic strategists of the continuing political centrality of less highly educated white voters. Marginal shifts in partisan balloting by the white working class have been a crucial determinant in the outcome of elections since 1968.
This non-college white constituency — pollster shorthand for both the white working class and the white middle class without college degrees — makes up a massive bloc of the electorate, with estimates ranging from 48 percent of the entire electorate in 2016, according to an analysis by Catalist, a liberal voter research group, to 54 percent, according to the Cooperative Congressional Election Study.
Pete Brodnitz, founder and president of Expedition Strategies, a Democratic polling firm that has performed studies for the Democratic House Majority PAC, wrote by email that in 2018 he found that the white working class could be divided into five political categories:
- reliably Democratic, 33 percent;
- lean Democratic, 7 percent;
- true independents, 10 percent;
- lean Republican, 7 percent; and
- reliably Republican, 44 percent.
How each of these categories voted in 2016 shows the importance of these distinctions. In a poll of battleground House Districts, Hillary Clinton carried the reliably Democratic base by a solid 67-point margin (78-11) and the lean Democrats by 61 points (64-3). She lost the true independents by 16 percentage points (21-37). Trump won overwhelmingly among the lean Republican whites (73-12, a 61-point margin) and the solid Republicans by 84 points (88-4), according to the data collected by Expedition Strategies working with Normington/Petts, another Democratic polling firm.
“In almost every way, white non-college Democrats and white non-college Republicans are nothing alike,” Michael Podhorzer, the political director of the AFL-CIO, emailed in response to my inquiry.
Polling conducted by GQR, a Democratic firm, for the AFL-CIO, found that among the Republican white working class, 79 percent identify as Christian, two thirds of whom are evangelical or born again. Among the Democratic non-college electorate, 44 percent said they were Christian, and one third of them said they were evangelical or born again.
The Democrats are much younger, according to Podhorzer: 22 percent are Gen Z or Millennial compared with 12 percent of working class white Republicans. The Democratic members of the white working class are 59 percent female and 41 percent male, compared with 51 percent female, 49 percent male among Republican non-college whites.
Perhaps most important, the white non-college Republican and Democratic constituencies differ radically on policy and political beliefs.
Take favorability ratings of
- Obamacare,
- Black Lives Matter and
- Medicare for all.
Among working class white Democrats, the ratings are uniformly positive, according to AFL-CIO data: 89 percent, 80 percent and 85 percent. Among their white Republican counterparts, the ratings are uniformly dismal: 5 percent, 9 percent and 18 percent.
What this data shows is that Democrats should have little trouble retaining the support of members of the white working class who identify as Democrats, but they will struggle mightily to win over their Republican counterparts.
This divide leaves the small percentage of the white working class whose views put them in the middle ground between left and right up for grabs and likely to determine the outcome in 2020.
The AFL-CIO survey suggests that the roughly 10 percent of non-college whites who do not identify with either party may be reachable for Democratic candidates, but there are big hurdles.
For one thing, these self-described independents do not side with mainstream Democrats on the kinds of incendiary issues that President Trump loves to promote.
The AFL-CIO study examined four categories of voters: all Democrats; non-college white Democrats; independent non-college whites; and Republican non-college whites.
The survey asked, for example, whether voters agree or disagree with the statement “Social and economic problems in this country are largely due to individuals across races and origins refusing to work and expecting handouts.”
All Democrats, including white non-college Democratic respondents, took liberal stands, sharply disagreeing with the statement by 62 points (78-16) and 56 points (76-20). Independent voters in the white working class were in favor by 11 percentage points (52-41), and Republican respondents were solidly in agreement, by 72 points (84-12).
On a similar racially freighted question — “Social and economic problems in this country are largely due to certain groups failing to work hard and play by the rules” — Democrats disagreed by large margins, while independent white non-college voters showed greater conservatism, agreeing 54-36; Republican non-college whites strongly agreed, 79-12.
The accompanying graphic shows the pattern of opinion on three additional questions measuring what sociologists call “anti-black affect.”
A Partisan Chasm on Race
Less-educated white Democrats largely agree with Democrats overall, but the views of independents and Republicans are the reverse. Percentage of respondents to a 2018 survey who agreed or disagreed with these statements.
AGREE: White people in the U.S. have certain advantages because of the color of their skin.
ALL DEMOCRATS
83%
76
DEM.
WHITES WITH
NO COLLEGE
29
IND.
17
REP.
AGREE: Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for African-Americans to work their way out of the lower class.
ALL DEMOCRATS
73
69
DEM.
WHITES WITH
NO COLLEGE
24
IND.
8
REP.
DISAGREE: Ethnic groups like the Irish, Italian, Jewish and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors.
ALL DEMOCRATS
57
49
DEM.
WHITES WITH
NO COLLEGE
14
IND.
4
REP.
The next accompanying graphic illustrates hostility toward immigrants — or acceptance.
Democrats Stand Alone on Immigration
Percentage of respondents who disagreed with these two statements.
DISAGREE: Increase border security by building a fence along part of the U.S. border with Mexico.
ALL DEMOCRATS
80%
DEM.
82
WHITES WITH
NO COLLEGE
IND.
28
REP.
3
DISAGREE: Deport undocumented immigrants to their native countries.
ALL DEMOCRATS
56
DEM.
55
WHITES WITH
NO COLLEGE
IND.
14
REP.
1
The AFL-CIO survey demonstrate why liberal Democratic leaders like Pelosi are resolved to stand clear of some of the issues that divide their party from independents. At the same time, it shows why Pelosi and others want to focus on so-called kitchen table issues.
On health care and economic matters, there is far more overlap between the views of Democrats as a whole and independent white working class voters.
Support for a tax on wealth in excess of $100 million tops 90 percent among Democrats, while white working class independents support such a proposal 59-25.
A proposal supported by Democrats of all stripes — “Having the government produce generic versions of lifesaving drugs, even if it required revoking patents held by pharmaceutical companies” — has the backing of non-college white independents, 56-25.
By two to one, white independents agreed with two liberal populist statements: that “social and economic problems in this country are largely due to a handful of wealthy and powerful people rigging the rules to their advantage” and that “social and economic problems in this country are largely due to a handful of wealthy and powerful people dividing us against each other so they can take more for themselves.”
Two proposals backed by some of the Democratic presidential candidates — Abolish ICE and Medicare for All — do not sell well among white non-college independents, who opposed the two initiatives by 71-15 and 48-31.
Podhorzer argues that in the 2020 battleground districts and states the contest will be fought over the 13 percent who are swing voters, a group he calls “partisan bystanders.” He described them as “voters who either have a very negative view of both parties or do not have strong feelings about either party. These voters favored Democrats in the 2018 midterms by 11 points after favoring Trump by 6 points in 2016.”
According to Podhorzer, almost half (46 percent) of the partisan bystanders are “white non-college, so this group, especially white non-college women, is going to be a battleground for both campaigns.”
Podhorzer makes a key point: In his view, this 13 percent is receptive to Democratic appeals because they
are looking for answers to the basic economic challenges they face. That issues like health care are much more important to them makes sense given that just about everyone who cares about issues like immigration has already picked sides and won’t be moved.”
In some respects, the AFL-CIO poll provides ammunition to the Third Way, a centrist Democratic advocacy group.
Jonathan Cowan, president and co-founder of Third Way, argued in an email that:
Going forward to 2020, there are lines that Democrats can’t cross if they want to win nationally and hold the House and gain in the Senate. Medicare for All is one of those lines. But there are others like abolishing ICE, a guaranteed federal job, and certain climate proposals that ignore the economic circumstances of the interior of the country.
A Third Way survey of Democratic primary voters, conducted in May by David Binder Research, found that calls to abolish ICE in particular are problematic. In fact, Democratic presidential candidates are backing away from their earlier support of the idea, despite the horror show that is happening on the border right now.
The Third Way poll found that Democratic voters of all stripes prefer a candidate who promises to expand employment opportunity to one who would guarantee everyone a government job; and these voters prefer a candidate who would ensure “that every student who enters college can finish with a degree” to one “who supports free 4-year college for all students.”
In the case of health care, the Third Way survey of Democratic primary voters found that a plurality, 42.9 percent, preferred a candidate “who wants an annual cap that limits the costs people pay while making sure everyone has insurance coverage” while 35.2 percent prefer a candidate “who wants to pass a single-payer, Medicare for All government-run plan.”
Both Democratic and Republican strategists are putting all of these findings under a microscope because in a highly competitive election, seemingly small shifts can determine the outcome.
ADVERTISEMENT
Take the difference between Hillary Clinton’s performance in 2016 and the performance of House Democratic candidates.
In 2016, all non-college whites went 60-34 for Trump over Clinton, while voting 58-38 in favor of Republican House candidates, according to Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at Tufts and senior researcher at the Cooperative Congressional Election Study.
This may seem insignificant, but if Clinton had been able to match the margin of Democratic House candidates, not only would she have picked up 2.9 million votes nationwide, she would have won Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by a combined total of 383,000 votes instead of losing them by a total of 79,646 votes.
One interpretation of Democratic success in taking control of the House in 2018 suggests a strategy of moderation, while using animosity to Trump to boost turnout in hard core Democratic constituencies, including among minorities, young voters and single women. If the 2018 House give hints on the type of voters who offer the best targets for 2020, it is worth recalling that more than three quarters of the newly Democratic seats are in centrist districts.
According to data provided by Third Way, the new Democratic districts are predominately upscale, with higher than average percentages of well-educated, well-off whites and lower than average percentages of less-well-off whites.
However, the demographics of these districts mask the significant gains Democrats made in 2018 among non-college, less affluent whites. This becomes clear in an analysis of the 2018 election by Yair Ghitza, chief scientist at Catalist.
“There has been a lot of attention paid to the Democratic victories in suburban areas, but we find that Democratic gains were actually largest in rural areas,” Ghitza wrote:
These gains weren’t enough to get over 50 percent and win seats in many rural districts, so they have escaped much of the mainstream election analysis to this point. These changes are nonetheless important, particularly because they were large in many of the Midwest battleground states that will no doubt be important in 2020.
Ghitza provided further support for the Democratic strategy of going after white non-college voters by noting that 2018 Democratic gains were “largely driven by voters who voted for Trump in 2016 and voted Democratic in 2018.”
ADVERTISEMENT
It is no wonder, then, that Pelosi is not the only party leader warning Democrats to be wary of the danger of focusing too much on social and cultural issues in the heat of the primaries. Such counsel also comes from African-American Democrats.
Take Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, who suggested to the Washington Post last week that there should be less attention paid to Biden’s stumble on race: “African-Americans are worried about the safety of their families. They’re worried about jobs. They’re worried about health care, diabetes, cancer, and they’re worried about how to pay for kids’ college.”
Richmond was joined by Representative John Lewis, who said he didn’t think Biden’s remarks were “offensive,” before adding, “During the height of the civil rights movement we worked with people and got to know people that were members of the Klan — people who opposed us, even people who beat us, and arrested us and jailed us.”
The Rev. J.M. Flemming, president of the Greenville NAACP, told the Washington Post:
“I’m not going to let anybody sidetrack folks that I know about who are looking at Biden, when we ought to be looking at the things said by Trump. Nobody is making anybody out to be a perfect person, but what Trump is doing, for me, that’s far worse.”
The concerns of African-Americans, in this view, are substantially the same as the concerns of the millions of white working class voters who remain open to Democratic candidates — or at least they coincide in critically important ways.
The fate of the Democratic Party in 2020 hangs on this premise and on a united resistance to Trump’s malign strategy of divide and conquer.
Republicans Need to Save Capitalism
Democrats have gone left, so they’re not going to do it. The GOP needs a renewed seriousness.
.. Pew Research sees the party lurching to the left since 2009; Gallup says the percentage of Democrats calling themselves liberal has jumped 23 points since 2000. But you don’t need polls. More than 70 Democrats in the House, and a dozen in the Senate, have signed on to the Green New Deal, an extreme-to-the-point-of-absurdist plan that is yet serious
Evangelical Leaders Are Frustrated at G.O.P. Caution on Kavanaugh Allegation
Worried their chance to cement a conservative majority on the Supreme Court could slip away, a growing number of evangelical and anti-abortion leaders are expressing frustration that Senate Republicans and the White House are not protecting Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh more forcefully from a sexual assault allegation and warning that conservative voters may stay home in November if his nomination falls apart.
Several of these leaders, including ones with close ties to the White House and Senate Republicans, are urging Republicans to move forward with a confirmation vote imminently unless the woman who accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual assault, Christine Blasey Ford, agrees to share her story with the Senate Judiciary Committee within the next few days.
The evangelical leaders’ pleas are, in part, an attempt to apply political pressure: Some of them are warning that religious conservatives may feel little motivation to vote in the midterm elections unless Senate Republicans move the nomination out of committee soon and do more to defend Judge Kavanaugh from what they say is a desperate Democratic ploy to prevent President Trump from filling future court vacancies.
“One of the political costs of failing to confirm Brett Kavanaugh is likely the loss of the United States Senate,” said Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition who is in frequent contact with the White House.
“If Republicans were to fail to defend and confirm such an obviously and eminently qualified and decent nominee,” Mr. Reed added, “then it will be very difficult to motivate and energize faith-based and conservative voters in November.”
The evangelist Franklin Graham, one of Mr. Trump’s most unwavering defenders, told the Christian Broadcasting Network this week, “I hope the Senate is smarter than this, and they’re not going to let this stop the process from moving forward and confirming this man.”
Social conservatives are already envisioning a worst-case scenario related to Judge Kavanaugh, and they say it is not a remote one. Republican promises to shift the Supreme Court further to the right — which just a few days ago seemed like a fait accompli — have been one of the major reasons conservatives say they are willing to tolerate an otherwise dysfunctional Republican-controlled government. If Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination fails, and recent political history is any guide, voters will most likely point the finger not at Mr. Trump but at Republican lawmakers.
.. The reason the prospect of Judge Kavanaugh’s defeat is so alarming to conservatives is that they fear he could be the last shot at reshaping the nation’s highest court for years. If Republicans were to lose control of the Senate, where they hold a 51-to-49 majority, in November, Mr. Trump would find it difficult to get anyone confirmed before the end of the year. Even if Senate leaders were able to schedule hearings and hold a vote, there could be defections from Republican senators uneasy about using a lame duck session to ram through a lifetime appointment that would tip the court’s ideological balance.
.. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas and one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal evangelical supporters, said he did not know who was telling the truth, Judge Kavanaugh or Dr. Blasey. “But I can say with absolute certainty,” he added, “that the Democrats don’t care who is telling the truth. Their only interest is in delaying and derailing this confirmation.”
.. The importance of the Supreme Court to the Trump White House and the Republican Party is difficult to overstate. Mr. Trump has heralded Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and Judge Kavanaugh, his two Supreme Court nominees, as crowning achievements in an otherwise uneven presidency.
.. Conservative groups have spent tens of millions of dollars building the men up as legal luminaries, gentleman scholars and the fulfillment of Mr. Trump’s campaign promise to nominate judges who have “a record of applying the Constitution just as it was written,”
.. A relatively smooth, predictable confirmation fight has also been a key part of Republicans’ strategy to keep the Senate. In the 10 states that Mr. Trump won where Democratic senators are up for re-election, Republicans have attacked Democrats for either opposing the judge or remaining noncommittal.
.. some are also arguing that they cannot be indifferent and insensitive to a victim.
.. But many conservatives see little use in being deferential when, they argue, the Democrats play by no such rules. They look back at the failed confirmation of the Republican nominee Robert Bork in 1987, whose writings on civil rights were picked over by Democrats, and the 1991 hearings for Clarence Thomas, who faced testimony from Anita Hill that he had sexually harassed her, and they see a sophisticated and ruthless Democratic machine bent on discrediting their nominees.
.. “Republicans are right, as a moral matter as well as a political matter, to take allegations of misbehavior like this seriously,” said Frank Cannon, president of the American Principles Project and a veteran social conservative strategist. “At the same time, we’ve seen anything and everything thrown at Republican Supreme Court nominees for decades,” he added, noting that Republicans have been slow to understand that Democrats are “playing by different rules.”
.. Privately, some conservatives were thrilled that Dr. Blasey and her lawyer have resisted the opportunity to testify in the Senate on Monday and demanded instead that the F.B.I. first investigate her claims. That would be just enough, they said, to give Republicans the justification for moving forward without her. The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, made clear on Wednesday that he would not postpone a hearing past Monday.
.. sets up a fight that Republicans could win in the Senate but might ultimately lose at the ballot box in November. The level of outrage could run so hot among Democrats, who would likely use every procedural and political tool at their disposal to delay confirmation, that it could provide even more fuel to an already energized liberal base.
.. “Given the confirmation theatrics, followed by this allegation that was held until the last moment, this could be seen as another partisan attack and could actually fuel conservative turnout,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.
.. Conservatives are likely to use protests and other forms of resistance to Judge Kavanaugh as a way to clarify for unmotivated Republican voters what Democratic control of the Senate means: a Trump-nominated Supreme Court justice would never be confirmed again.
“If Chuck Schumer is majority leader and Dianne Feinstein is chairman of the Judiciary Committee,” said Mr. Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, “it will be open season on any Trump nominee to the federal bench at any level of the judiciary.”
Steve Bannon and the Making of an Economic Nationalist
The controversial White House counselor says his father’s 2008 financial trauma helped crystallize his antiglobalist views and led to a political hardening; ‘I’m going to be totally wiped out’
“The only net worth my father had beside his tiny little house was that AT&T stock. And nobody is held accountable?” Steve Bannon, 63, said in a recent interview. “All these firms get bailed out. There’s no equity taken from anybody. There’s no one in jail. These companies are all overleveraged, and everyone looked the other way.”
.. Steve Bannon idealizes the bygone corporate era that gave his father the kind of stability that he himself never pursued. Marty Bannon, who voted for Mr. Trump, sought a life of security, while the thrice-divorced Steve Bannon craves chaos and drama. He has served in the Navy, dabbled in penny stocks
.. “He’s the backbone of the country, the everyman who plays by the rules, the hardworking dad that delays his own gratification for the family,” Steve Bannon says. “The world is probably 95% Marty Bannons, and 5% Steve Bannons. And that’s probably the right metric for a stable society.”
.. Under his leadership, the site ran increasingly controversial headlines such as “The Solution to Online ‘Harassment’ Is Simple: Women Should Log Off,” “There’s No Hiring Bias Against Women In Tech, They Just Suck At Interviews,” and “Hoist It High and Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims a Glorious Heritage.”
.. ideology is less about Republicans and Democrats than about middle class versus elites—nationalists versus globalists. He says that explains his opposition to open borders, political corruption and what he views as political correctness.
.. He expected to become a priest as an adult, he says, but met his future wife and soon started his family. He declined an offer to play for the Washington Senators
.. I had great faith in AT&T,” Marty Bannon says. “At their peak they were the best company for service. That was inbred. Fire, flood, storm or whatever, they called you and you went. Whatever time of night. And you stayed out there until the job was finished.”
.. His children nicknamed him “Safety Sam.”
.. Marty Bannon says he lost more than $100,000 because he sold the shares for less than he paid for them. It was a decision he made without consulting a broker or his family, including his two sons with investment backgrounds, who only learned about the sale days after it was finished. The shares subsequently regained much of their value.
.. Jim Cramer told “Today” show viewers to pull money from the stock market if they needed any cash for the next five years. Steve Bannon says the warning spooked his father.
.. “He was older, in his 80s. But all these guys from the Depression, it’s a risk-averse generation because of the horrible things they saw in their youth. He was rattled.”
.. The way Steve Bannon sees it, the institutions his father put his faith in failed him.
.. Steve Bannon thinks U.S. companies should once again feel more responsible to their communities. “Why can’t you revert back to a golden age?” he asks. “You can.”
.. “The government created this problem,” Marty Bannon says. “The elites, they got bailed out. Everybody else in the country, whatever happened, happened, and they just had to move on.”