Should Democrats even bother competing in the struggling factory towns of the Midwest?
ONE report released Tuesday answers this question with a resounding yes. But the fact that it's being asked at all speaks to the Democratic Party's unsolved challenge of how to win back the more than 2.6 million voters it has lost in places like Ottumwa, Iowa, and Scranton, Pa., since 2012.
More than five years after Donald Trump boosted the white working class in America's weakened industrial heartland, Democrats are still trying to understand what happened and debating whether they should look elsewhere for votes. Should they try to increase the electoral score in urban areas and inner-ring suburbs?
Basic electoral math suggests they have little choice: It would be extremely difficult for Democrats to win a governing majority without keeping their “blue wall” in the Midwest, and continued erosion in smaller communities may make that impossible in the near future.
In this year's midterms, Democrats are trying to win open Senate seats in Ohio and Pennsylvania, while hoping they can somehow unseat Republican incumbents in Iowa and Wisconsin — all states dotted with hard-hit areas. from the effects of global economic and technological change in recent decades.
But there is more at stake than who holds political power.
“If fascism and authoritarianism continue to rise in this country,” the authors wrote, “it will be because more of the voters in the small and medium-sized manufacturing belt counties are fueling its progress.”
Economic slide and political shift
In Iowa, which holds primaries on Tuesday, the Democratic Party has given up.
Trump won the state by more than eight percentage points in the 2020 presidential election, and this year's midterms portend more misery for Democrats. They hold only one of Iowa's four congressional seats, and several major statewide offices are disappearing.
Jasper County, just east of Des Moines, is a prime example of the typical factory town arc.
The county was once the center of America's laundry industry, but after a Maytag plant closed in 2007, unemployment jumped 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 into the future of an entire Republican-leaning region, a new report warns.
Published by a nonprofit group called American Family Voices;, was written primarily by Mike Lux, a Democratic strategist and Biden ally with roots in the region. It's based on research published last fall and highlighted by my then-colleague Jonathan Martin. The study used polling, focus groups and several hundred interviews and meetings with local officials, political actors and activists, as well as a deep dive into voter record and census data.
The authors emerged with a richer set of findings to suggest “a messaging and organizing path forward” for the Democratic Party in the 10 states, 565 counties and nearly 55 million voters they studied.
The poll, which was conducted by Lake Research Partners, shows a population being hit by the rising cost of living and suffering from health-related crises. The majority, for example, said they or someone in their family had a chronic 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 intense. The Democratic share of the electorate in so-called factory town counties shrank from 33 percent to 24 percent from 2012 to 2020, according to TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm hired to work on the project, while the Republican share increased to more. from 51 percent over the same period, from 40 percent.
Voters in this “factory town” demographic, which still makes up nearly half of the electorate in these states, often view Democrats as too weak to implement their economic agenda and are cynical about politicians' ability to help them in general.
“Progressive Populism”
The report contains nine recommendations, which can be summed up in a call for “progressive populism” to address the disillusionment and economic dislocation that many of these voters feel about politics.
Lux, who spent much of the past year immersed in the study, said in an interview that “probably the No. 1 surprise for me is how desperate people are for community.”
A former labor organizer, Lux said he came away from his talks convinced there was an untapped “hunger” in factory towns to talk about political issues and “get past some of the anger and emotion into a more balanced conversation.”
He recommends that the Democratic Party, labor unions and progressive activists focus on engaging voters in the middle who are repulsed by extremism and unconvinced that the Republican Party has their economic interests in mind.
“This is a challenging task given that the level of cynicism and dissatisfaction with 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 of the revival of the progressive movement.”
What to read
-
While Democrats everywhere are deeply concerned about a series of political warning signs ahead of the midterm elections, they have a particular cause for concern in California, writes Katie Glueck: skyrocketing gas prices.
-
Mayors of big cities are outraged by the recent spate of mass shootings, but while they often have power over police departments and social service programs, they say they are largely unable to enact the gun control measures many see as 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 concerns a legal theory that would fundamentally reshape the way federal elections are conducted by greatly expanding the power of state legislatures to set election rules contrary to state constitutions and draw congressional maps distorted by partisan gerrymandering.
how they run
The mayor of Long Beach plans to head 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 front-runner for an open congressional seat that Democrats are expected to win in November.
Mayor Robert Garcia was the first Latino and the first openly gay to lead Long Beach.
He was one of 17 speakers during the 2020 Democratic National Convention keynote and appeared in The News throughout the pandemic to ask for safety precautions after the deaths of his mother and stepfather from Covid-19. Later, he Open the Long Beach Convention Center to accommodate undocumented children who had arrived at the southern border.
In Tuesday's primary, Garcia has the support of Gov. Gavin Newsom and many members of California's congressional delegation.
“The issues that existed before the pandemic exist today, but they're just bigger,” Garcia told our colleague Jill Cowan in 2020. “You think about issues around income inequality and homelessness, the housing crisis that's here in California. , climate change — these are all huge.”
Sara Sadhwani, an assistant professor of politics at Pomona College who sits on California's redistricting committee and who said she has not publicly endorsed a candidate, said Los Angeles has often looked to Long Beach as a model for successful politics.
“It seems his leadership would be progressive and pragmatic,” Sadhwani said.
Garcia faces several Democratic Party opponents, most notably Cristina Garcia, who is not related to him.
A member of the State Assembly representing South Los Angeles County, Cristina Garcia has built a reputation for advocating for policies to protect and support women. She supported legislation exempting pads and tampons from sales taxes and, as head of the Legislative Women's Caucus, was a leader in California's #MeToo movement.
However, her reputation took a hit in 2018 when Politico reported that a former staff member had he accused her of petting him; he filed a lawsuit against her and the Assembly on the grounds that she had been ill-treated because she was a man. In a radio interview to KQED, Garcia said she had “never assaulted anyone.”
Around the same time, he was also accused of doing anti-asian and homophobic comments. He denied that he had deliberately used offensive language.
Her campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
— Blake and Leah
Is there anything you think we're missing? Want to see more? We would love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
