Posted on 12/02/2014 1:42:29 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
A measly 34 percent of this group backed House Democratic candidates in 2014, creating a gap that could sunder the party's 2016 hopes.
Hillary Clinton's support of deferred deportation of millions of undocumented workers might help the Democratic Party's putative presidential nominee win over Latinos in 2016. But among the voters most responsible for the Democrats' midterm wipeout this year, it could very well make things worse—and therein lies Clinton's dilemma.
Support for Democrats among white, working-class voters was especially sparse this year: A measly 34 percent of them backed Democratic House candidates, exit polls found, while they fled in almost equal measure from Senate candidates like Rep. Bruce Braley in Iowa and incumbent Mark Udall in Colorado. Democrats still performed relatively well among black and Hispanic voters, but the deficit among whites without a college degree—who constituted more than one-third of the nationwide electorate—was too much to overcome.
One of the central challenges facing a Clinton campaign will be managing to win back enough of those voters, especially in a working-class-heavy battleground like Iowa. But as her quick support of deferred deportations shows, she'll have to do so while also motivating black, young, and Latino voters who formed the core of President Obama's coalition in 2008 and 2012.
At times, the two imperatives will work against each other.
"Democrats, to win regularly, not just the presidency but other levels of government, they need to do better among ... noncollege whites than they've been doing," said Ruy Teixeira, a demographer who has written extensively about the electoral advantages inherent in the nation's changing demographics. "You can't ... just rely on the coalition of the ascendant."
Once the backbone of the Democratic Party, working-class white voters have gradually shifted into the GOP's camp since the 1970s in part because of the alienation they felt toward an increasingly urban, culturally cosmopolitan party. Democrats, meanwhile, have made up for the loss by winning over minorities and a greater share of the upscale white vote.
Clinton doesn't have to win a majority of white voters without a college education—Obama never did, after all. Even during the height of his 2008 campaign, he won just 40 percent of them. Four years later, his share slipped to 36 percent.
But in 2014, the bottom fell out, and it fell out in places where Democrats have performed relatively well with working-class white voters, even recently. The party didn't just lose the white, working-class vote in places like Arkansas and West Virginia, where it has long since stopped being competitive at a presidential level. It also lost the vote in Iowa.
Braley, the Democratic Senate nominee in Iowa, won just 41 percent of the white, working-class vote in an overwhelmingly white state, exit polls showed, on his way to a stunning 9-point defeat in an open-seat race. Precise data was unavailable for Obama's performance among the same group in Iowa in 2012, when he won the state comfortably, but he won 52 percent of voters without a college degree that year.
Other states showed a particularly weak performance among blue-collar whites: In Colorado, Udall got just 34 percent of their vote, to his opponent's 61 percent. For Democratic presidential candidates, most plausible paths to the White House run through winning both of those states.
Democrats do have some reason for optimism. For one, the share of white, working-class voters continues to shrink every presidential election by an average of about 3 percentage points, according to Teixeira, while the share of groups Democrats do better with—racial minorities and well-educated white voters—continues to grow. And Democrats hope that Clinton, as the nation's first major-party female presidential nominee, would be able win over so-called waitress moms at a greater rate than most Democratic candidates.
The most pressing need for Clinton, however, might be devising an economic agenda and message able to convince some of those voters to back Democratic candidates.
Get back with me after the election - when HRC is the first woman President.
Two years is a long time - for a woman ready for the retirement home.
Let’s compare notes after November 2016.
For many years, the white vote has been fairly evenly split. The blacks have been a swing vote for many elections. But with Obama, Holder, Rice, and company, the events in Ferguson, etc. the white working class is beginning to realize that the Democrats certainly don’t represent them.
They are slowly beginning to shift to either independent or Republican.
When the majority of whites identify with the Republicans, the blacks will become a less important as a swing group. They will be thrown under the bus. But by then, it will be too late.
Look at the Deep South. The how many white Democrats do you see? How many white congressmen are there in the South. As Ferguson type protests continue, and the Obama government continues to side with the black thugs, the white exodus will continue across the country.
Hillary is the biggest nebbish on the political scene.
Even judging her from the perspective of the left, her lack of achievement is outstanding.
Another fairy tale on the myth of the shrinking white voter base.
Republicans and conservatives now control two-thirds of state legislatures and a majority of governorships. Rats are bleeding white voters by the 10s of millions. That trend has been evident since the 1990s when millions of families with children fled the dying liberal hellholes and moved to exurbia.
“Blacks will realize their strength in number and take control. They will throw out the white leaders...but at the same time, they will lose the funding. The Democrat party will shortly thereafter cease to exist.”
I think you’re onto something that most don’t see. And once blacks take over the Rat party, say bye-bye to the Mexican demographic; they will leave by the millions. There’s already a race war taking place in California where Mexicans are ethnically cleansing blacks from certain areas. Of course the propaganda press isn’t reporting the racial strife because it would tear apart the fragile racial coalition that makes up the criminal Rat party.
That’s a wonderful story, Cowboy Bob. It’s made my day. :)
Die Eiskaltem Mädchen
Wer Sie sind - Ihre Schönheit ist seit langem verblaßt
Sie stoßen in allem Respekt zufällig, wie schrecklich erschöpft
Kein Mann kann anheben bevor Sie, während Sie sein Gesicht leben
Innerhalb Sie verfehlt wund den Geist der wahren Anmut
Erklären Sie mir eiskaltem Mädchen: könnte der Weltbär Sie so
Wenn Sie Herz alle Männer hatten, bevor Sie sicher beugen würden
Aber Sie sind auf Erde in jedem Artfilz eiskalt
Nichts auf Erde oder Himmel kann Ihre eisige Außenschmelze
Wenn nur Sie Kälte, da Sie sind, nicht vom Eis gemacht wurden
Sie würden wieder so schön sein, wie Sie nett sein würden
Der würde ein angenehmer Gedanke sein, zum jetzt zu erwägen
Wenn nur Sie Mädchen diese Seite von Ihnen aufhörten, um darzustellen
Die Frau auf Erde, die schön und wirklich selten ist
Ist das voll von Wärme und allen hinaus Liebe über vergleichen.
In English, its more colloquial:
The Ice Cold Maiden
Who are you - your beauty has long since faded
You come across in all respect as terribly jaded
No man can lift before you while you live his face
Within you is sorely missing the spirit of true grace
Tell me ice cold maiden: could the world bear you so
If you had heart all men before you would surely bow
But you are ice cold on earth in every manner felt
Nothing on earth or heaven can your icy exterior melt
If only you cold as you are were not made of ice
You would be again as beautiful as you would be nice
That would be a pleasant thought to contemplate now
If only you ceased maiden that side of you to show
The woman on earth who is beautiful and truly rare
Is the one full of warmth and love beyond all compare.
But when she screams at the help to carry her luggage.
Some, but not many.
See my poem!
I think we know the difference between a woman who has true beauty and a woman who merely presents us with the affectation of it.
Looks aren’t everything, you know.
True beauty as the saying as it, like good wine, improves with age.
she will win 100% of the STUPID vote...
There’s no accounting for taste.
Like I described her, she’s not someone people want to be around.
I agree!
Whatever slight hopes the Democrats had of recapturing white working-class voters is currently being slaughtered on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri.
She will pull many who don’t vote a lot. In actual numbers, not a lot. But it will be enough.
The Republican primary will have a number of conservatives splitting the conservative vote allowing the “moderate” to float to the top. Far right conservatives will sit it out or vote third party - as many on FR claim.
So those who want to be able to vote for the first woman president will be enough.
I don’t know about the white working class, but she sure has the drunks sewed up.
At some point, the Black Democrats will demand that one of them become the House Minority Leader. Not sure if someone will challenge Nancy Pelosi...but when she leaves office, there will be a battle.
That will be fun to watch!
yes it will Liz
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