Donald Trump's landslide presidential victory this month proved that his 2016 victory was no fluke. Like the populist right in Europe, President Trump is riding on a working-class revolt against the governing elite, which the Biden-Harris administration has failed to understand and effectively counter.
Trump lost the national popular vote in the past two White House elections, but this time he won by a margin of about 2.5 million votes, putting him right between second and second place. obtain a complete majority and plurality. He expanded into blue cities, suburbs, and states, and made big profits along the way. independent and traditionally Democratic-leaning groups: young voters, blacks, and especially Latino voters without college degrees.
This convergence in white working-class and non-white working-class voting behavior shatters the progressive myth that “people of color” reliably think and vote similarly along Democratic Party lines. Class is currently defined primarily by educational level, which appears to obscure ethnicity as the country's deepest political fault line.
Harris was burdened by an unpopular incumbent who could not withstand the strong public desire for political and economic change that had pushed the country to the right. Her defeat confirmed the Democratic Party's status as a shrinking party, now in the minority as it lost touch with working families across Middle America.
For decades, the party has chased a seductive mirage: a “new progressive majority” made up of left-wing activists, minorities, college graduates, and professionals. Those on the streets were working families, who accounted for about two-thirds of the voters.
Since Barack Obama left office in 2016, trend line It was equally bad for the Democratic Party. As analyst Rui Teixeira reports, Harris underperformed Obama among black voters (26 points), Latino voters (27 points) and young voters (19 points). Even more striking are the numbers among nonwhite working-class voters (Democrats down 30 points). And the party continued to lose ground among white non-college voters (down 10 points).
Harris performed well white college graduate. But that only emphasizes the strange class reversal in which the Democratic Party is the party of upscale college graduates, while the Republican Party represents an increasingly multiracial working class.
This problem has been solved for decades and won't be solved by a small tweak. The Democratic Party now needs a fundamental shift in order to prevent a realignment of American politics around a new populist right-wing majority.
To regain competitiveness, Democrats must reinvent themselves. It's a daunting task, but we can draw inspiration from some precedents.
The most recent example of a major centre-left party successfully flipping an election is the UK. On July 4, the Labor Party, led by Keir Starmer (now Prime Minister), won a decisive victory, ending 14 years of Conservative government.
This capped Labour's remarkable recovery after suffering a crushing defeat in 2019 under Starmer's far-left predecessor Jeremy Corbyn. Boris Johnson's pro-Brexit Conservatives uprooted 28 traditionally working-class constituencies that were part of Labour's “red wall” in the industrial Midlands and North.
Over the past four years. Starmer was single-mindedly focused on bringing the party back to the center and winning back working-class voters. In July, Labor increased its support among working-class voters by five points, winning 37 of 38 “red wall” seats.
The Democratic Party can also look back at its own transformation from the late 1980s to the 1990s. At the time, the party was in the midst of a long losing streak in the White House, having won just one election since 1968 and averaging a dismal 42% of the vote.
President Ronald Reagan's landslides in 49 states in 1984 “The New Democrat” – a movement of elected leaders and thinkers determined to disrupt the party's electoral slide and inject new intellectual energy. (Full disclosure: I served as a co-founder of the Democratic Leadership Council).
The New Democratic Party focuses on the aspirations and values of working families who, in Bill Clinton's words, “work hard and play by the rules,” and aligns with outdated liberal orthodoxy and special interests in the party's policy agenda. challenged the rule of
This difficult but essential effort at party renewal culminated in the 1992 election of Clinton on the New Democratic Party's platform of modernizing government. Four years later, he became the first Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt to win a second term.
The main lesson Democrats should draw from these experiences is to put working families first. Mathematically speaking, there is no way to build a durable governing majority with only college-educated voters. Morally, the People's Party should reflect the mainstream values of the American middle class, not the diluted “luxury beliefs” of upper-class elites.
Democrats must develop a new governing blueprint that is rooted in center-left pragmatism rather than the demands of the anti-market or cultural left. Although progressives hold important positions in the large Democratic coalition, they do not control the party.
Rather than climate change or elite notions of “social justice,” the party needs to raise living standards for working families, create better alternatives to college to acquire in-demand skills, and reduce taxes and regulations. It eases the burden, improves government work, gets things done faster, and in the cultural realm elevates the common American identity over different tribal identities.
But who has the authority and ability to make all of this happen? The best answer is those elected by the Democratic Party. Unlike activists, constituency groups, media commentators, think tanks, foundations, and academics, they face the reality of public sentiment every two, four, or six years as they confront voters.
Fortunately, the party has governors like Colorado's Jared Polis, Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro, Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer, Kentucky's Andy Beshear, and North Carolina, among others. It has a deep pool of talent, including newcomers like Josh Stein of the state and former governors like Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island. There are also rising stars in the House New Democratic Alliance and the Senate.
The Democratic Party needs new leaders who are willing to invest their time and faith in a collective effort to return to the party's working-middle-class roots. Who will come forward?
Will Marshall is the founder and president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
