Posted on 06/16/2021 4:37:11 AM PDT by Kaslin
The reason Democrats in Washington are increasingly frustrated is because their legislative ambitions far outstrip their congressional majorities. They have no majority at all in the U.S. Senate -- it is evenly divided, 50-50, between Republicans and Democrats -- and depend on Vice President Kamala Harris to break ties. They have a tiny majority in the House. That makes passing bills hard and gives extraordinary power to any Democrat, like Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who can threaten to abandon the party and sink Democratic hopes on any particular issue.
Now, a new report looks at why Democrats failed to win a bigger majority in the House and any majority in the Senate. Three activist groups -- Third Way, The Collective PAC and Latino Victory -- studied the party's underwhelming performance in House and Senate races in 2020. And they've come up with answers that some progressive Democrats will probably not want to hear.
First, they concluded that party leaders' hopes were just too high going into the election. Democrats had won big in the 2018 midterms, picking up 41 seats in the House. They expected another big win in 2020, and party leaders like Nancy Pelosi said so repeatedly.
"We heard from campaign strategists that the party drove up expectations by publicly signaling it expected to win everywhere it made a play," the report said. Those sky-high expectations, based in part on poor polling that undercounted white non-college voters who were open to the Republican message, led to Democratic overconfidence.
Second, the researchers found that Democrats took minority voters for granted in a big way. Party strategists viewed black, Latino and Asian voters as targets for get-out-the-vote efforts -- not as voters who first need to be persuaded to support Democrats. For example, party leaders didn't do any research to find what issues were important to black voters. Why? They were already in the tent, weren't they?
It was a major miscalculation. First, with black voters: "Despite historic turnout, even where black voters were key to Democratic successes this past cycle -- including in Georgia, Arizona and Michigan -- the data show drop-off in support in 2020 compared to 2016 and 2018," the report said.
Next, with Latino voters: "Drop-off in support among Latino and Hispanic voters were [sic] the lynchpin in Democratic losses in races in Florida, Texas and New Mexico -- especially among working-class and non-college voters in these communities," the report said. And then, among Asian voters: "Drop-off in AAPI [Asian American-Pacific Islander] support fueled losses in key races in California, especially among Vietnamese and Filipino voters," the report said. So the party paid a big price for taking its voters for granted.
Third, Democratic leaders, mostly based in coastal cities, assumed their voters were as progressive as they were. In a year in which the Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police movements took hold, Republicans attacked Democrats as proponents of socialism and defunding the police. The problem for Democratic leaders was that some Democratic voters were sympathetic to the GOP message. "In the districts we looked at, those in which 'law and order' or 'socialism' was a continued drumbeat also saw a higher share of Latino/AAPI/black voters who supported the GOP," the report said.
Finally, Democrats thought hatred of President Donald Trump would propel them to victory, not just in the White House, but the House and Senate, too. It didn't work out that way. "Some campaign teams we spoke with felt that the party didn't have a message beyond 'Donald Trump sucks,'" the report said, "and this void led to split-ticket voting for Biden at the top of the ticket and Republicans down ballot (leading to split outcomes in 16 districts nationwide)."
The result was a mess for Democrats competing for House and Senate seats. And much of that mess was created by a Democratic elite that didn't understand -- and didn't even try to understand -- what was important to the party's voters.
"Folks who purport to speak for the vast communities of color across the country are speaking for one portion of them, usually highly educated urban elites or super-online activists. Those people don't necessarily represent the views of Latino men who work in the oil fields, for instance," top Third Way official Lanae Erickson told National Journal. "What we have done is conflate urban white liberal views with the views of people of color -- and allowed them to speak for those people of color."
The report is good news for Republicans. First, it shows that a significant number of Democratic voters are open to at least some GOP messaging. Second, it shows that many Democratic leaders do not understand all of their voters. And third, it shows new outreach opportunities for Republican candidates in 2022 -- if GOP leaders are smart enough to take advantage of them.
This content originally appeared on the Washington Examiner at washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-democrats-trapped-in-progressive-echo-chamber
Can’t stand rubber spined, Trump hating, globalist, elite clubber York. The only thing one has to know about him is that he’s the penultimate ambidextrous pay check grabber thus his words should be taken accordingly. I think he’s on the China tit too.
Enough said.
They're not.
I don’t care for him either, but like the proverbial stopped clock that is right twice a day...there is some truth in this.
In my eyes, many of these things right here he mentions are also indications of election fraud.
If Biden had really won the elections, he would have had coattails, because that is often how it works. But he didn’t have any.
The article is a bit optimistic. The Leftists are in their own echo chamber, but too many of them don’t know it.
“and this void led to split-ticket voting for Biden at the top of the ticket and Republicans down ballot (leading to split outcomes in 16 districts nationwide).”
horsehiite
The “Split Ticket” stuff is way overblown.
Check those districts for rampant voter fraud.
At least now we have the correct targets to watch.
Byron York couldn’t find massive voter fraud if it ran over him...totally clueless...monkey at a typewriter standard of clueless.
Studying demographics in the 2020 election is like studying the Piltdown Man to understand human origins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
Speaking of monkeys, isn't it time he ditch that John Denver, look-alike deal he has going on?
If all these groups failed to support the Dem candidates during this last election, how the heck did all of them also decide to select Biden?
DO people really, in those numbers, go and vote for one person on the whole ticket, leaving everybody else to twist in the wind?
They didn't bother to change votes or stuff the ballot box for other candidates as much.
They’re not “trapped” - they’ve bought in wholesale, and prostituted themselves completely to Marxist linsanity.
This is a genuinely ignorant article. (Tired of saying stupid) Democrats lost downstream because they did not fill out their fraudulent ballots beyond BIDEN/HARRIS.
The will continue to count on the dead and imaginary (fraudulent) voters.
Worked great for the 2020 Presidential Election. Now they need to extend it to all elections.
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