What It Takes to Win This Election

As was obvious to pretty much everyone who watched it, Kamala Harris kicked The Donald’s butt in the debate. It was a historic takedown. She showed voters what a great president she would be, and showed Donald Trump to be the awful little man that he truly is. Harris made the case, very successfully, that she is fighting for working families, and Donald cares only about himself and his billionaire buddies. Harris was brilliant and passionate on the abortion issue; she laid out her specific ideas on a range of economic and other issues. If Donald Trump wasn’t such a terrible person, you’d almost feel sorry for him.

That was on top of an incredible convention, a brilliant VP pick, and a historic campaign launch second to none when President Biden decided to pass the torch. The Harris-Walz ticket is on a roll.

Closing the deal

But we haven’t closed the deal yet, folks. This presidential race is still razor thin in seven battleground states and two battleground congressional districts around the country. The most closely contested Senate races are in many of the same states (AZ, MI, NV, PA, WI), plus Montana and Ohio. There are a slew of close House races in those same states and districts, as well as California and New York.

What 100% of the presidential and Senate battlegrounds, and the large majority of the congressional races, have in common is that working-class swing voters are a huge factor in the states and districts. And we have not closed the deal with those voters yet.

Two recent polls  correspond closely to my organization’s Factory Towns research in showing the way to winning the voters we need.

One was by End Citizens United. Their poll was of battleground House races, many of which are in presidential and Senate battleground states, and all of which are in closely contested districts with lots of swing voters. Their polling, like most others these days, was moderately optimistic but still shows things close. 

To my way of thinking, their most significant finding was that while Democrats had a solid partisan advantage on “protecting democracy,” standing up to corporate corruption, and taking on government corruption, we have the potential to be doing much better if we are framing our discussion with these issues in mind. Democrats have an 11-point advantage in standing up to corporate special interests, but 31% of voters don’t think either party is trustworthy on this issue. Given that our Factory Towns polling shows that voters believe the Republicans are much more likely to be in bed with big corporate interests, it is clear that we have a real shot at building our lead on that issue in a big way. 

The other thing worth noting out of that poll is that if you couch other issues in populist language about taking on big money and corporate special interests, it improves our numbers on just about every issue. Voters often wonder why Republicans would be in favor of some of the awful things they are in favor of: ending abortion rights, slashing Social Security and Medicare, opposing gun safety laws, opposing Medicare negotiating drug prices with Big Pharma. But when you remind voters of all the money those Republicans are getting from special interests on those issues, they get the connection, and it makes them mad.

Another poll, done by Lake Research Partners for Way to Lead, shows the importance of populist messaging even more deeply. This poll tested five separate messages, three of them more overtly populist on the economy, two that were softer and more generic about growing the economy and balancing the budget. All of the messages beat the Republican messages on the economy, but the three more populist messages performed better overall and moved voters more. This poll also recommends personalizing talk about the economy, so that instead of broader messaging about the economy doing better, campaigns should talk more specifically about improving things for your families.

Working-class voters are lagging

As I indicated above, the Harris-Walz campaign has made big strides forward since Harris launched her bid for the presidency. She has made important gains with African-American voters, Latinos and especially Latinas, young women, and traditional Democratic voters who live in big cities and big city suburbs. These gains have turned an election where we were behind in the polling, especially in Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada, into a more even polling situation. Our numbers in these demographic groups will probably become more solidified by the debates, and the enthusiasm on our side will continue to grow as well, not only with voters, but with activists and donors as well.

But there is a segment of absolutely critical swing voters that is more isolated, cynical, and angry than those of us who so enjoyed the debate and the convention before it. These voters live in small and medium-sized towns. They used to have pretty good lives but a lot of the factories in their communities have gone away, the 2008-9 financial crisis hit them hard, the opioid epidemic swept decimated their communities, and inflation has been a big problem for them. A lot of their newspapers and radio stations have gone away; right-wing media companies like Sinclair own their local TV news, so they aren’t getting much trustworthy news.

These voters are economic populists, and they can be moved our way by a populist message on kitchen table economic issues. But to get to them, we need to build communities of people at the local level who will get them the information they need to move them towards us. And we need a strong economic populist driving our message to them.

The Harris-Walz campaign’s ads have had the right kind of messaging to appeal to these voters, but these voters are cynical about advertising. It will take old fashioned community organizing, and newer kinds of online community building to reach them.

If we don’t close the deal with working-class voters, we could see Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin slip away. But if we reach out to them in the right way, this election could go from a scary nail-biter to one where we are pulling away at the end and winning those states 52-48 or even a little more.

Let’s go get these working-class folks and create a clear path to victory.