DES MOINES — At the first event of her first full day in Iowa as a presidential candidate, Sen. Kamala Harris was greeted by a Democratic voter who offered a pointed recommendation about the best route to the White House.
The voter, Rahul Parsa, who teaches at Iowa State University's business school, said he told Ms. Harris at a gathering of Asian and Latino activists that she should think of the Democratic Party in the Midwest like a struggling retail business — and that she would he must look not only to regular customers, but also to those who are not loyal supporters also.
“Kamala needs to know why people voted for Trump, what are his problems?” Mr. Parsa said, adding that he had one general requirement for the growing field of would-be candidates: “You have to bring in some states in the Midwest.”
As the Democratic race gets underway, with one or more candidates entering the race almost every week, Mr. Parsa's view represents one side of a long-simmering debate within thethis party: Whether Democrats should redouble their efforts to win back the industrial heart which effectively handed the presidency to Donald J. Trump? Or should they turn their attention to more demographically promising Sun Belt states like Georgia and Arizona?
With polls showing that electoral viability is as important to voters as any policy issue, a handful of the party's prospects are already holding onto their Midwestern credentials to argue that they're the ones who can turn Big Ten country — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin — blue again.
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Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota immediately went to neighboring Wisconsin after declaring her candidacy earlier this month, making a tough point about her willingness to compete in a state Hillary Clinton never visited in the 2016 general election. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who has not officially entered the race, used his first trip to Iowa to make a beeline for a county that trailed former President Barack Obama by more than 20 points in 2012 but fell to Mr. Trump by about the same margin. four years later.
And a central premise of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s possible candidacy is that the Scranton-born Democrat would be the political mason best able to rebuild the so-called blue wall of the Midwestern party.
But far from the growing snowdrifts that line every sidewalk here, there's a growing school of thought that Democrats shouldn't spend so much time, money and mental energy tailoring their message to a heavily white, rural and blue-collar part of the country when their coalition is increasingly made up of racial minorities and suburbs. The party should continue to pursue voters who have drifted toward Republicans, the thinking goes, but it should also place a high priority on mobilizing communities more amenable to progressive politics.
The numerical exchange between the three Rust Belt states that delivered Mr. Trump the White House and the most enticing trio of Sun Belt targets is nearly even: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin have a combined 46 electoral votes, while North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona offer 42. And an ambitious “approach” a state like Texas would offer a greater trove of electoral votes to Democrats than Ohio and Iowa combined, states that have begun to slip away from the party.
The controversy isn't just about tactics — it's about how Democrats envision themselves becoming the majority party. The question is whether this is achieved by focusing on kitchen issues like health care and jobs to win over moderate and disillusioned Trump voters, or by mindlessly elevating issues of race and identity like immigration to mobilization of youth and minorities. with new fervor.
Julian Castro, a former federal housing secretary and San Antonio mayor who is running for the Democratic nomination, said recovering the Midwest should be Democrats' “top priority.” He said Mr. Trump had clearly failed voters there, “whether it was on trade or the loss of jobs at GM.”
But Mr. Castro also urged the party to extend the electoral map much deeper into Republican territory, suggesting that, with the right candidate, Democrats could deal Mr. Trump a crippling blow by turning even Texas blue.
“The Sun Belt is clearly turning against him,” Mr. Castro said of the president, adding: “I think candidates who can connect with growing, diverse states like Arizona, Texas, Florida and Georgia, the it makes a big difference.”
Mr. Castro cited his own historical background to suggest he could do just that: “Among other things, I'm young and, as a trailblazing Latino candidate, I'm confident that the turnout there in the Latino community will come through. the roof.”
Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat who narrowly lost the governorship there last year and is considering a Senate bid next year, was even more blunt. “The accelerating diversity of America's new majority demands a new approach to winning elections that yields more representative leadership and policies that serve everyone.” said Ms. Abrams, adding that “our electorate must be built on rare voters who share our values.”
But the suggestion that Democrats should tone down what he has for a long time the preeminent battleground in presidential politics is enough to stir deep anger among officials in the Midwest.
“It drives me crazy,” said Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who won an easy victory last year in a state that Mr. Trump won narrowly. “To put any particular part of the country in a general classification and write it off is ridiculous.”
Ms. Whitmer said she won by “going into areas that most Democrats wouldn't spend their time going.” He added, “You show up at a bowling alley.”
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For other Democrats in the district, it's not just about appearances. The policy approach also matters.
Contrary to those on the left who say the only way to win is to energize progressives with an ambitious agenda, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said the party would do best in his state with a pragmatic candidate who recognized that the dramatic policy proposals — like free college and “Medicare for all” — were aspirational goals, not do-or-die demands.
“I think Wisconsin is very winnable,” Mr. Evers said. “But it has to be someone who talks about the issues and is seen as reasonable.”
Asked whether the Upper Midwest represented the Democrats' fastest route back to the White House, Mr. Evers, a soft-spoken former state education official, responded with a wild-eyed smile. “Hell yes,” he said.
To Democrats in the Midwest, the cardinal sin of the 2016 campaign was Mrs. Clinton's failure to send a concrete and compelling economic message, leaving traditionally Democratic constituencies either uninspired to vote or tempted to support Mr. Trump.
Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, a longtime ally of Mrs. Clinton who took office this year, said the party should be aggressive across the map in 2020. But he described unlocking the Midwest as its primary imperative and urged Democrats to speak in vivid terms about it changing economy and compete even in conservative-leaning rural areas that rarely support party candidates.
“You can't get to the White House without winning the Midwest,” Mr. Pritzker said, arguing that economic issues transcend other social divisions in much of the region. “You have to be able to talk to people where the manufacturing base is eroding, where the skills gap is widening, where jobs are changing.”
But Mr. Pritzker said the 2020 Democratic ticket also had to reflect the party's complex coalition. “It's hard to believe that our party, which is truly representative of the diversity of America, could ever again put forward a ticket that's going to be two white people, sure, or two white people,” he said.
The gravest risk to the shift away from the Midwest, Democrats here and elsewhere say, is that the party could jeopardize its recently won majority in the House and cede the Republicans' long-term majority in the Senate by not plowing through the top. ticket resources in the Great Lakes region.
“If you can't support — and you don't show up for — rural voters, you'll never have the Senate, so you'll never be able to govern,” the former farmer said. secretary and governor of Iowa Tom Vilsack.
For many Democrats, there is no choice. While the Midwest might be enough to win them the presidency, only sweeping victories in both regions would be enough to secure the White House and both houses of Congress.
The stakes for Democrats may be higher in the Senate, where they face a structural disadvantage due to the heavy influence of rural conservative states. Party leaders are increasingly turning to the Sun Belt — and recruits like Ms. Abrams and Beto O'Rourke in Texas — to offset Democrats' growing weakness in the Farm Belt and the rural West.
“One of the big lessons we learned in 2018 is that the party as a whole needs to think bigger than it traditionally has and create a bigger footprint on the map,” said Dan Sena, a strategist who grew up in New Mexico. brain the Democratic takeover of the House last year by pushing the party to compete for once-off-limits seats in both Iowa and Georgia.
And of course, Democrats who aspire to be president are most interested in a two-way approach.
Ms. Klobuchar may have vowed she would “not leave the Midwest behind,” but last weekend she went to Atlanta and visited Ms. Abrams and former President Jimmy Carter. And Mr. Brown spent the weekend in the increasingly diverse, and Democratic, state of Nevada, where he had set his early candidacy.
“We have to compete among working-class voters of all races everywhere in the country,” he said by phone Sunday as he passed through the Las Vegas airport, arguing that “his message is working everywhere.”
But Mr. Brown was just as quick to point out that no Republican has ever won the presidency without holding Ohio, and he offered what amounted to a chilling reminder to Democrats when asked about the wisdom of downplaying the Midwest.
“I don't want to wake up the day after the 2020 election and win the popular vote by 4.5 million and lose the Electoral College,” he said.
Jonathan Martin reported from Des Moines and Alexander Burns from Washington
