Voting demographics are changing based more on class than race
The midterms will show GOP is becoming more working-class
Summary in the beginning
The Republican Party are gaining voters from the Democrat Party who are working-class and that includes blacks and latinos. This is because Democrats have fallen into the trap of seeing Blacks as voters who care about drug crimes and Latinos as voters who care about illegal immigration reform. Working-class Americans want the American dream - the freedom to choose our path and allow for upward social mobility for our family and children. It looks like the midterms will show that the GOP gets it, but is that good?
Another WSJ Poll
My previous 2 newsletters1 were about the “suburban white women” vote that was highlighted in a WSJ poll that really rattled Democrat leaders in the past couple of days. For this newsletter, I am going to highlight another WSJ poll results that came out early this morning. It found that Republicans are “gaining support among black and latino voters”.
As Democrats have fixated on Donald Trump, waging a war on energy and downplaying inflation, the Republican Party has focused more on outreach to diverse communities than ever before. Networks, like MSNBC, have warned about a possible success in this area, but are the Democratic voters taking it seriously with articles like this - “It may be counterintuitive, but a more racist Republican Party is succeeding with diversity efforts”.
Another example is Stacey Abrams, who is running for Governor of Georgia against the incumbent Republican governor, Brian Kemp. She continues to claim that a record voter turnout of black men voting does not mean there has not been suppression of the black men vote. In an interview to MSNBC on Sunday, November 6th, Abrams explained -
We need to remember, again, while we have been focused on the spectacle of Donald Trump and his election denial and the force he’s been able to build, quietly, men like Brian Kemp have been doing something more insidious. That is putting barriers in place to deny access. It is a lot easier to gain the outcome when nobody can show up.
It is arguments like these that are putting Democrat candidates at a disadvantage because they are denial about how to persuade their voters. Democrats are losing this argument when they are solely focused on appealing to a voter’s race.
Arguments based on Race identity
Recently, both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Joe Biden, made comments in interviews that really should have offended their potential Democratic voters. However, it highlights the disconnect between the Democrat party leaders and the people they want to vote for them.
#1 - Nancy Pelosi and migrant workers
Back in September, Pelosi gave a press briefing and really wanted to go after Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who sent a plane full of “migrant workers” to Martha’s Vineyard which brought national attention to the problem of illegal immigrants crossing at the border. In a statement Pelosi said -
We have a shortage of workers in our country, and you see even in Florida, some of the farmers and the growers are saying, ‘Why are you shipping these immigrants up north? We need them to pick the crops down here’.
Yikes! Latinos do not see themselves as a collective group of immigrants who want to work in the fields and “pick the crops”.
Republicans’ same miscalcuation
The Republicans failed with this same logic after wrongly assessing why Mitt Romney lost his bid to become President in 2012. The GOP believed they needed to be soft on immigration reform in order to attract more Latino voters. However, they had a rude awakening with the rise of Donald Trump in 2015. Donald Trump hit illegal immigration hard on his campaign trail. Won the presidency in 2016 and gained Latino votes in his failed bid for re-election in 2020.
How did Donald Trump gain Latino votes despite having a very strong border message??
Democrats were not too worried about it because they did not see it as a big shift from 2018 to 2020.
2018 - Democrats held 31% points advantage over Republicans
2020 - Democrats held 28% points advantage over Republicans
However, Democrats should have felt the earthquake when Mayra Flores won the special election for Texas District 34 back in June. I give more details about this in a previous newsletter (Washington and Tea Leaves). Flores became the first Mexican born, American citizen to win a seat in Congress. She was able to do this because of some of the main reasons why Latinos have decided to vote Republican -
They care about crime and living on the border they see the rise in crime
They are small business owners so inflation is hurting them more than big business owners
They work in the oil and gas industries and President Biden has damaged that industry
Did Democrats listen to the concerns of many Latino populations?
WSJ Latino Poll result -
2022 - Democrats hold 5% points advantage over Republicans
Democrats failed to see these cracks in their own message in 2020, and Republicans have done a better job speaking to the concerns of the Latino communities.
#2 - President Biden and African Americans
President Biden gave a radio interview to “The Rickey Smiley Morning Show” on Tuesday, November 1st. The host asked the President, "what have you done to improve the lives of African Americans?”
The President answered with -
Well, I hope I’ve improved the lives of African Americans like I said I would do. For example, too many African Americans were denied everything from Pell Grants, student loans, housing, et cetera, because they were arrested for possession of marijuana - many too many. Whites as well.
So anybody who was ever arrested just for the possession for marijuana, their record is expunged. They don’t have to list it anymore, and it’s going to free up a lot of opportunities.
Again… Yikes! President Biden is lumping African Americans in with drug problems and incarceration. What a bleak picture of African Americans if the best thing a President can do for them is let them out of jail or commute their drug sentences.
Republicans’ same error
Again… Republicans (President Trump) made this same mistake during the 2020 campaign year. President Trump wanted to gain ground with the black community and the outreach he made was through passage of the First Step Act that went into law in 2018. The law looked to address crimes with long sentences based on low-level drug offenses.
More than 90 percent of federal detainees who have received sentence reductions under the First Step Act are African Americans. However, the law only applies to people with federal convictions.2
This is also going to be true [federal convictions only] for President Biden as well. Trump did make a modest gain from his 2016 result.
2016 - 8% Black vote to Trump
2020 - 12% Black vote to Trump
However, the rise in percentage from 2020 to 2022 is fascinating.
WSJ Black Voter Poll
2022 - the WSJ poll showed about 17% of Black voters who “said they would pick a Republican candidate for Congress over a Democrat”.
This rise occurred despite Republicans not talking about marijuana, student loan bailouts and incarceration rates. This swing in voters tells me that Black voters do not see their biggest problem being drug incarcerations or paying for college loans.
The biggest concerns for these Black and Latino Voters? Working-class issues of social upward mobility for them and their children.
Class Unites Races
I believe Ruy Teixeira3, a demographer for AEI, gives some of the best explanations for the arguments that speak best to the demographics of Black and Latino voters who are choosing to vote for Republicans this midterm. Teixeira has tried very hard to sound the warning signs for Democrats because he is one. He recently wrote a fantastic article in The Atlantic - Democrats’ Long Goodby to the Working Class: The party’s biggest challenge heading into the midterm elections is the erosion of its traditional base of support. For a democrat, it is a devastating autopsy of how they have forgotten who is their voter and subsequently, the voice of their party.
Teixeira summed it up best in an interview for the WSJ article when he said -
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 realize that class warfare can be just as devastating as a race warfare. However, we can find so much more in common when we base the discussion on ideals or principles (like rule of law or upward social mobility) instead of immutable traits (like race). The Republicans have figured this out. You can see this in the polls and in the people Republicans have recruited to run for office.
Winning might be losing
Ironically, the Republicans biggest problem might be in winning the midterms. Do they really have a working-class agenda to hold onto and build on these victories for 2024?
Sincerely,
Me
1st newsletter on this topic - Biden’s speech gives more “signs of the times”, and the 2nd newsletter was - Midterms will be about COVID policies for Suburban voters
He has a wonderful substack newsletter that I love to follow as well - The Liberal Patriot