A Counter-Factual To The Working Class Narrative Of The Election

The general consensus that the Democrats seem to have taken from the election debacle is the need to focus on the working class. While I don’t necessarily disagree with that analysis, I also don’t believe Democrats need to make a huge pivot. It is more a change of emphasis in the message they already have and a need to speak with one voice now that they are solely an opposition party.

But there are also some counter-factuals to that general consensus. Vox has an interesting look at various Democratic Senate candidates’ results compared to Hillary Clinton.  The article points out the Senate Democratic candidates who specifically ran on an economic populist platform actually underperformed Hillary Clinton, while more “centrist” candidates outperformed her. They even put together a handy visual to illustrate the point they are trying to make.

The two candidates who outperformed Hillary the most were Jason Kander and Evan Bayh. Kander and Bayh both ran as moderates. Admittedly, Bayh had an enormous advantage in name recognition and exposure to the electorate as a former Indiana Senator. Kander was an outstanding candidate who focused his campaign on essentially “draining the swamp” of corruption in DC, a similar message to Trump. On the other hand, the three candidates who underperformed Hillary were Russ Feingold, Patrick Murphy, and Ted Strickland. Feingold and Strickland were running in two Midwestern battlegrounds, Wisconsin and Ohio respectively. And both candidates ran campaigns that emphasized economic populism. Feingold, especially, has long been known for his populism, opposing special interests and big money in politics. Strickland ran hard on opposing past trade deals, highlighting the fact that his opponent, Rob Portman, was George W. Bush’s trade representative. Looking at the results this way certainly indicates that a greater focus on economic populism may not have been a winning strategy for Democrats.

While this analysis is useful, it is also important to not read too much into this. Each Senate election was unique unto itself. Strickland was painted as a failure early on in his campaign, primarily because he was governor during the Great Recession. And Bayh and Feingold especially may have suffered from the dreaded down-ballot Comey effect, where the Republican benefited from the belief that there needed to be a bulwark against a Clinton Presidency. (That may explain why Tammy Duckworth underperformed). But all three of those candidates were retreads who Democrats had run statewide before. Kander was a new face with a distinctive message. In the end, voters may have also felt that Trump’s economic populism was preferable and it was worth giving him a free hand by supporting GOP candidates down ballot.

In any case, I still believe economic populism is the correct approach for Democrats. Fighting for the working class is what the Democratic party is all about. Democratic policies have helped and will help the working class. Obamacare has provided affordable health care to the working class. But Democrats betrayed the working class by abandoning the fight to save and expand unions. And they were unable to effectively implement policies that countered the negative effects of globalization and automation on American workers. The trade deals that Democrats implemented and agreed to were probably a net positive for America as a whole. The problem is that all the benefits went to the holders of capital, the 1%, and none were shared with the American worker. It is up to Democrats to come up with those policies and make it clear that the party stands with the American worker again. That will take new candidates with clear and concise policies to help the working class. Whether or not that will win close elections in battleground states is unclear. But it is clearly the right thing to do.