Durable Minority Status

Writing at National Journal, Josh Kraushaar reports the discouraging-to-Democrats results of polling they had done in working class districts. These were districts to which they hope to renew their appeal.

The poll surveyed working-class white voters in pivotal districts that Democrats are targeting in the midterms. Despite the Trump turmoil in Washington, Republicans held a 10-point lead on the generic ballot (43-33 percent) among these blue-collar voters. Democrats hold a whopping 61 percent disapproval rating among these voters, with only 32 percent approving. Even Trump’s job-approval rating is a respectable 52 percent with the demographic in these swing districts.

By a stunning 35-point margin, blue-collar white voters believe that Republicans will be better at improving the economy and creating jobs than Democrats. Under Trump, the economy has been growing—even in the disadvantaged parts of the country. Between promising job creation and Trump’s own paeans to blue-collar work, it’s hard to see the GOP numbers changing significantly.

Blue-collar voters’ resistance to the Democrats is on cultural grounds, not economic ones—a finding that studies of Obama-Trump voters have repeatedly shown. 

It is a resistance that will be hard to overcome given the Democrats' commitment to, and reliance upon, identity/victim group politics. Blue-collar voters hear victim group politics as anti-white, meaning anti-them. It is "you are deplorable" all over again; criticizing voters is no way to get them to vote for you.