Great White Hope: Why Some Dems Are Moving Right: Democrats have been losing ground in Midwest

National Review ^ | 04/01/2015 | JOSH KRAUSHAAR

[SeekAndFind]

Republicans are debating whether their path to the presidency in 2016 runs through the blue-collar Rust Belt states, or the demographically changing new South and Sunbelt states. For Democrats looking to retake the Senate, however, the formula is more clear-cut: Win back white working-class voters, or be consigned to a longer-term minority.

Most of the Senate battlegrounds run through the Midwest—Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio—along with New Hampshire, which carries demographic similarities with those older, whiter Great Lakes states. To defeat the vulnerable Republican incumbents, Democrats have a challenging task ahead: Making inroads with blue-collar voters, who have been stubbornly resistant to the party's agenda since Barack Obama's time as president.

It's no coincidence that Democrats are turning to candidates with biographies tailored to appeal to this constituency. Illinois Rep. Tammy Duckworth announced her candidacy Monday against Sen. Mark Kirk by touting her working-class upbringing and service in the military. Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who represented a blue-collar district in the House, is the expected Democratic nominee against Sen. Rob Portman. Former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, a populist who championed campaign-finance reform during his last Senate tenure, is eyeing a comeback against the businessman who defeated him in 2010. And former three-star Navy Admiral Joe Sestak, a former two-term congressman from the working-class Philadelphia suburbs, is an early front-runner to face a rematch against Sen. Pat Toomey.

Exit polls show that Rust Belt Democrats performed dismally among non-college-educated white voters in these states in 2010. Feingold won just 40 percent of their vote in 2010, five points behind Obama's vote share in the state two years later. In Ohio, Strickland tallied just 40 percent of the working-class white vote in his reelection bid—a 20-point decline from his first gubernatorial campaign.

[ExCTCitizen]

The last conservative Dem was Ella Grasso. She was a great governor...

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Ella was a very RARE Democrat. She gained a reputation as an extreme penny pincher who cut budgets to a minimum by reducing the number of state employees as well as WELFARE and aid to municipalities. No Democrat would do that today except under budget crisis (Connecticut was nowhere near a budget crisis then ).

Despite widespread criticism over her financial policies, Connecticut’s economy prospered and she was reelected in 1978 with little difficulty. Too bad she died young.

Now we have a big spender like Gov. Malloy who doesn’t even understand his own state’s laws in regards to RFRA.