Ben Davis, The Guardian, 11/11/20
Biden’s win depended on suburbanites tired of Trump, who voted Republican down ballot and will certainly vote Republican in future elections
Democrats went into last Tuesday’s election with a clear strategy: flip enough suburban Republican voters to beat Donald Trump. This paid off: Joe Biden won the election by flipping enough voters in the suburbs of Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Phoenix. The election, however, exposed the gaping flaws in this strategy for any party that hopes to win and wield power. Democrats may have accomplished their near-term goal, but in the long term the party is in an extraordinarily weak place, built on a rickety coalition united only by a hatred of a president who will soon no longer be a threat. The Democrats took the shortest route to beating Trump, but in the process may have irreparably damaged their ability to build a governing majority and implement progressive policy.
Myths
The period immediately after an election tends to be a time of myth-making rather than serious analysis. These myths, however, often take the place of truth and influence both political strategy and voters themselves for years after. So what do we know actually happened? Biden won the presidency, by a fairly clear margin in both the popular vote and electoral college, but with margins that were far too close for comfort in the decisive states. Democrats lost seats in the House and, pending special elections in Georgia, will either have lost or tied in the Senate. They were projected to win both the House and Senate.
Biden was able to hit the numbers he needed in the crucial highly educated suburbs, but many of these traditionally Republican voters split their tickets down ballot, voting for the Republican in the US Senate and House of Representatives. Despite polls showing clear gains for Biden among white non-college-educated voters in the rural midwest, Democratic gains here were minimal, and in some places, like much of rural Wisconsin, Trump actually increased his margin after it had seemed like Democrats had hit rock bottom in 2016. With the hugely increased turnout, Trump actually netted more votes out of much of the rural midwest than in 2016.
Most concerningly, Democrats hemorrhaged votes among non-white working-class voters. Exit polls show Trump winning more non-white voters than any Republican in a generation. This was most apparent among Cuban American voters in Miami-Dade county, who of course have their own idiosyncratic politics. But losses among Latino voters could also be seen in huge margins in the Rio Grande valley, one of the most impoverished regions in the country, in Osceola county, Florida, and up and down the map from El Centro, California, to Lawrence, Massachusetts. Early returns also show consistent gains for Republicans among black voters across the board. Even in the crucial states Biden was able to flip, Trump reduced Democratic margins in Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. These results should be setting off alarm bells among Democrats.
AOC nails it
The first post-election myth is the same that emerges from Democratic leadership and media talking heads after every election: the threat of the “far left”. The election has given an opportunity for elected Democrats to engage in their favorite pastime and primary political commitment: lashing out at anyone, anywhere who might want to do anything about climate change or crushing inequality or systemic racism. This myth must be combatted, not only is it a threat to the progressive left and Democrats ability to win elections, it’s on its face false.
As noted by the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, incumbent Democrats in swing and even Republican-leaning seats who co-sponsored Medicare for All were undefeated, while every Democrat who lost their seat took a conservative position on the issue. An analysis of swing seats by Justice Democrats showed that more conservative voting records were actually correlated with decreased vote share among incumbent Democrats. Exit polls showed massive support for a leftwing policy agenda. Where this agenda was on the ballot, it was triumphant even as moderation-obsessed Democrats lost up and down the ballot. In Florida, where Democrats distanced themselves from a ballot measure to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, the result was a huge win for the $15 minimum wage and a bloodbath for Democratic candidates. For many voters, the Democratic party isn’t associated with raising the minimum wage, and with the Democrats’ messaging strategy, why should it be?
If leftwing policy is popular, are Democratic losses among Latino voters a question of branding? Some centrists Democrats say an aversion to “socialism” was the issue, causing voters to flee the Democrats. Luckily, we have a good test of this idea from just this year, the primary run of avowed socialist Bernie Sanders. Far from fleeing in horror, Latino voters went for the socialist Sanders by enormous margins. In the nearly all-Latino Rio Grande valley, where Trump saw his largest gains anywhere, Sanders took nearly every county. Outside of Florida, Sanders won nearly every majority-Latino jurisdiction where Trump saw gains this year. These voters aren’t opposed to “socialism” – they are skeptical of the political establishment, not receptive to Democratic messaging about “decency” and political norms, and, most importantly, can’t be taken for granted. Following the lead of the Sanders campaign, Democrats need a real commitment to Latino outreach.
This current iteration of the Democratic coalition should be terrifying to anyone with leftwing policy goals or anyone who wants to see Democrats win elections. Biden’s coalition was whiter and wealthier than any Democrat’s before. Biden’s winning margins depended on suburban voters who were entirely motivated by personal animus towards Trump, who voted Republican down-ballot and will certainly be voting Republican in future elections. After buying into the mantra that turning out working-class voters was an impossible Bernie Sanders fantasy and messaging had to be tailored to wealthy suburbanites, Democrats were entirely caught off guard by massive turnout among working-class voters of all races, voters who voted Trump at higher rates than any previous Republican has achieved.
Democrats are now staring down the barrel of a future where Republicans have a real foothold among working-class voters, including non-white voters. For the left, we now have to confront a Democratic party where a real organized segment of its base has material interests opposed to any redistributive policy. This election has proven the moderate suburbanite strategy is unsustainable. The only path forward for the left is one of confrontation with the Democratic establishment and a message of economic populism aimed at working-class voters of all races. This election proved that workers vote; it’s the left’s task to capture them.