Why the White Working Class Might Hold the Key to a 2020 Democratic Victory

President Trump’s approval ratings are extremely low. 42.4% of Americans approve of his performance while the majority disapproves. However, despite his nationwide unpopularity, the President is well-positioned to win re-election and by an even greater margin than he did last time due to the structure of the electoral college. 

In 2016, the President lost the national vote by two percentage points but won the electoral college and, therefore, the presidency. The electoral college is organized such that votes in most states are awarded on a winner-take-all basis. This system allocates the greatest power to battleground states. Historically, these states have included several in the Rust Belt, an informal geographical region in the northern U.S., named for its industrial history. While the President’s national approval rating has declined, he has retained and, in some places, even gained support in critical Rust Belt states. Therefore, although the President may again receive fewer votes nationwide, he has the potential to win another electoral college victory. 

Voters want to know that candidates understand the anxiety produced by the day to day costs of living.

The clearest path Democrats have to defeat the President in 2020 is to target voters in the Rust Belt. While some argue that the Sunbelt, a geographic region stretching from the Southeast to Southwest region of the country, presents a viable option for Democrats due to increasing Hispanic populations, this path would be significantly more challenging. Although the President’s support has declined in states such as Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, these states are not yet blue enough that they present an easy option for Democrats to flip. Therefore, the most feasible option for Democrats is to win over battleground states in the Rust Belt. 

Critical states in the Rust Belt include Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and the white working-class vote plays a crucial role in turning the tide in these states. This demographic is defined as white adults over the age of 25 without a four-year degree and is largely considered to be the demographic that secured President Trump’s victory. In 2016, President Trump won this group by a staggering margin of 39 percentage points. The most recent census data indicates that the white working-class makes up 42% of the American electorate. While this group already represents the largest singular group in America, the white working-class constitutes an even greater portion of the Rust Belt. In Wisconsin, the white working-class makes up more than half of the electorate. Therefore, if Democrats are to win the general election, the Democratic nominee for 2020 must appeal to white working-class voters. 

To find out how Democratic primary candidates are approaching this reality, I spoke with a top Democratic strategist, currently advising one of the highest polling 2020 candidates’ campaigns. He explained that, although right now campaigns are tactically focused on winning the primary, which would generally lead them to focus on winning states such as Iowa, New Hampshire, or Nevada, they know that many voters care about who can beat President Trump. Therefore, an important piece of winning the primary is not only for candidates to campaign in the earliest primary states but also to prove to voters that they can win key states. To demonstrate their electability, several candidates have been campaigning in Rust Belt states, despite their relative insignificance at this early stage in the election cycle. 

The white working class, but also, more broadly, America is looking for a candidate who can articulate a clear vision for the direction of this country.

When asked how candidates can most effectively appeal to white working-class voters, this strategist identified three central messages. First, a candidate must demonstrate an understanding of the hardships voters face through a personal connection to such difficulties. Candidates must prove that a piece of their identity allows them to understand the realities of a voter’s life on a personal level. For example, Mayor Pete Buttigieg consistently calls upon his experience as the mayor of a small town in the Rust Belt, highlighting his intimate understanding of the problems his constituents face. Meanwhile, Former Vice President Joe Biden frequently discusses the fact that he grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. This personal connection to the lives of voters in the Rust Belt is intended to create a bond between the candidate and the voter such that the candidate is no longer viewed as an elitist outsider but as “one of them.” 

Specifically, voters want to know that candidates understand the anxiety produced by the day to day costs of living. This includes healthcare costs, housing costs, uncertainty surrounding retirement, and the costs associated with the care of children and elderly parents. Candidates must speak to and have specific policy proposals to address these personal economic pain points to win voters’ support. 

Furthermore, the candidates must discuss these proposals with rhetoric that relays their understanding of these daily costs. For example, although every candidate in the presidential field has released a healthcare proposal, the strategist I spoke with argued that white working-class voters are more attracted to candidates with proposals to address specific daily healthcare costs rather than broad systemic change. This assessment of voter preferences suggests that Democratic candidates such as Vice President Biden or Senator Amy Klobuchar who are proposing moderate healthcare plans may be better positioned to win the white working-class vote than Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. 

Finally, he stated that the white working-class, but also, more broadly, America is looking for a candidate who can articulate a clear vision for the direction of this country. 

“We are completely rudderless as a country; we have no north stars.” This last point reminded me of President Obama’s 2008 campaign with its winning slogan “Change we can believe in” and the chant “Yes We Can.” This message drew the American public into an inclusive and promising vision for our nation’s future. 

While candidates such as Biden speak more to the daily costs of living through a personal connection to the Rust Belt, the idea that the white working-class voter cares more about the promise of change calls into question which candidate represents a vision capable of capturing the consciousness of the white working class and of the American people.

In 2008, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin voted for President Obama and in 2016 they all voted for President Trump. Popular narratives describe Obama’s rise to the presidency as a groundswell in the turnout of new, young, minority voters, ignoring the former president’s support from the white working-class. His popularity in this demographic allowed him to win these critical Rust Belt states and secure the presidency. President Obama was so popular amongst white working-class voters that he would have won these states without a single vote in any of the major cities we typically associate as blue. He had enough support in Michigan that he could have won without Detroit, and enough support in Wisconsin that he could have won without Milwaukee. However, in 2016, 25% of those who voted for Obama did not vote for Hillary Clinton; These voters either voted for a third-party candidate or President Trump. 

I asked the strategist I spoke with how President Obama managed to appeal to white working-class voters, why some of them chose to vote for Donald Trump eight years later, and how a Democratic candidate might hope to draw these voters back into the fold. He responded, “The thing Obama and Trump have in common is that they both symbolized change for people who view[ed] government and politics as not working for them and sought something radically different. This is who Obama was in ’08 and who Trump was in 2016. They represented the change the country wanted in the moment.” 

Normally, when we think of the candidates in this field advocating change, candidates such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders come to mind. The idea that more revolutionary candidates might appeal to the white working-class contradicted his earlier assertion that a candidate solely focused on bread-and-butter issues should serve as the next face of the Democratic Party. Even though current polls show Vice President Biden beating President Trump in the Rust Belt, pollsters failed to adequately account for the white working-class in the 2016 elections. While candidates such as Biden speak more to the daily costs of living through a personal connection to the Rust Belt, the idea that the white working-class voter cares more about the promise of change calls into question which candidate actually represents a vision capable of capturing the consciousness of the white working-class and the American people.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, originally posted by user mathiaswasik on Flickr, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.