If you want a bit of schadenfreude on Election Eve, some new polls might leave you grinning. Over the weekend, new data showed Democrats that minorities are migrating to Republican candidates in a historic shift, and the electorate sees them as focused on all the wrong things. All Democrats had to do was not be crazy. Biden inherited an economy in recovery and a nation looking to take a collective deep breath. Instead, Democrats decided to destroy the economy and push transing the kids. Voters noticed.
According to a Wall Street Journal poll, 17% of black voters would pick a Republican candidate for Congress. That is more than double the share of the black vote earned by President Donald Trump in 2020 and House candidates nationwide in 2018. Among Latino voters, the Democrats’ advantage is deteriorating quickly. In August, they held an 11-point lead. Now, it is just five. In 2020, President Joe Biden earned 28% more of the Hispanic vote than Trump. In 2018, they favored Democrats in House races by 31 points. These numbers indicate a sea change in the electorate.
There is bi-partisan agreement among pollsters who spoke to the WSJ:
“I think that this could be a paradigm-shift election, where Republicans are not only making inroads with the Latino vote, but they’re now making inroads with the African-American vote,” said John Anzalone, who conducted the Journal survey with Republican Tony Fabrizio and served as President Biden’s lead pollster in 2020.
Mr. Fabrizio, who was Mr. Trump’s lead pollster in 2020, said, “It is wholly possible that Republicans reach a new high water mark among both African-Americans and Hispanic voters in this election.”
The political divide is returning to class-based concerns rather than race-based grievance politics. The electorate looked more like this in the early ’80s and early in the 20th Century. Now, for all of the Democrats yammering about “an economy that works for everyone,” it was Trump who actually provided one before the pandemic. Real wages went up for working-class Americans of every color for the first time in decades. Now, many are choosing between gas and groceries. Working- and middle-class families of all races feel the difference.
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Many commentators wonder if the shift is durable. Ruy Teixeira, who wrote The Emerging Democratic Majority in 2002 based on identity politics, told the Journal,“ Black working-class and Hispanic working-class people have a lot more in common with white working-class people than many people have been willing to believe.” I’m pretty sure most Americans agree that Kamala Harris has more in common with Nancy Pelosi than any working-class minority. If Republicans stay focused on cultural issues their base agrees with and economic policies that really work to restore the American Dream, it could absolutely signal a permanent change.
It helps that voters do not view Democrats as focused on their concerns. According to a survey by Third Way, a centrist Democrat group, the electorate is just as likely to see Democrats as radical as Republicans. Pretty astonishing, since Democrats have spent months trying to convince America that Republicans are dangerous fascists—when they aren’t writing their hands about “our democracy.”
In a memo, Third Way outlined its concerns. The opener is telling. “If Democrats manage to hold on to the House and Senate, it will be in spite of the party brand, not because of it, according to a pre-election national poll.” While some individual candidates established themselves as more moderate despite voting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden almost 100% of the time, the authors warn that “if this brand problem persists, Democrats will face an uphill climb in 2024 and beyond.”
According to the data, Republicans hold a decisive advantage on the issues voters care about. Two charts tell the story.
The Democrats’ insistence on focusing on luxury issues like climate change is at the root of the problem. While voters trust them more on this issue, no one cares what the temperature will be 100 years from now when they are not sure they can afford heating oil. Preferred pronouns are unimportant when you have to skip dinner so your kids have more to eat because grocery prices are out of sight.
Related: CNN’s Daniel Dale Throws Biden Under the Bus and Chuck Todd Runs Him Over
Even on education, voters trust Democrats to throw money at it, but Republicans to improve it. Ideologically, the electorate describes itself as center-right and sees Republicans as closer to themselves, according to Third Way:
Democrats received an average [ideological] score of 3 and Republicans an average score of 7.3. That means that Democrats, on average, are perceived as being 2.6 points away from the average voter, while Republicans are only 1.7 points away. Swing voters rate themselves a 5.4, on average, Democrats a 3.6, and Republicans a 6.5—again leaving the latter closer (1.1) to where swing voters rate themselves than the former (1.8).
Then, Third Way gives Democrats an impossible task. Try not to laugh.
The generic ballot leading up to the midterms is tight, and it’s anyone’s guess what the final House and Senate margins will be. But in the long-term, Democrats must face up to the challenge of convincing voters that they are the reasonable, mainstream, and competent party to preserve themselves as a palatable alternative to Republicans’ increasing extremism. This task will require convincing voters that Democrats will prioritize and deliver on their most central concerns and govern in a way that respects common American values like patriotism and valuing hard work.
On every survey in the last few years, Democrats have moved further to the left ideologically, while Republicans remain to the right of center. The current administration picked up Barack Obama’s apology tour and sought to increase dependence on the government to consolidate its own power. Americans hate all that and are finally willing to say so at the ballot box, no matter their skin color.
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