[In the current polarized political atmosphere, many college
graduates follow politics obsessively and identify with one of the two
parties. Many working-class voters, on the other hand, vote for both
parties and sit out some elections.] [[link removed]]

NEW POLL TRIES TO UNDERSTAND BLUE-COLLAR SWING VOTERS.  
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David Leonhardt
November 9, 2021
The New York Times
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_ In the current polarized political atmosphere, many college
graduates follow politics obsessively and identify with one of the two
parties. Many working-class voters, on the other hand, vote for both
parties and sit out some elections. _

Election Day in New York City last week., Ahmed Gaber for The New
York Times

 

‘Just a fantasy’

Political pundits often talk about swing voters
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as if they were upscale suburbanites, like “soccer moms” or
“office-park dads.” And some are. But many are blue-collar. They
are the successors to the so-called Reagan Democrats, who let
Republicans win the White House in the 1980s and Democrats retake it
in the 1990s.

This century, blue-collar swing voters helped elect
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Barack Obama twice, Donald Trump once and Joe Biden in 2020. They have
also played a deciding role in congressional and state elections,
including in Virginia last week
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In the current polarized political atmosphere, many college graduates
follow politics obsessively — almost as if it were a sport — and
identify with one of the two parties. Many working-class voters, on
the other hand, vote for both parties and sit out
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some elections.

Figuring out what moves these swing voters is a crucial question in
American politics. It has become an urgent
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question for the Democratic Party, which is struggling to win
working-class votes in many places, including some Asian
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and Latino
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communities.

This morning, a creative new poll exploring these issues is being
released. It asks working-class respondents — defined as people
without a bachelor’s degree — to choose between two hypothetical
candidates. The candidates are described both personally (their
gender, race and job category) and politically (including a sound bite
in which they talk about their views).

A central conclusion is that infrequent voters are not a huge
Democratic constituency just waiting to be inspired by a sufficiently
progressive economic message. “That’s just a fantasy,” Bhaskar
Sunkara, the founding editor of Jacobin, a socialist magazine and one
of the poll’s sponsors, told me, “and it’s a fantasy we
ourselves have engaged in.” (In fairness, numerous other people —
including Trump
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and, well, me
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— have believed that same misplaced idea.)

The poll instead finds that working-class swing voters hold a swirl of
progressive and conservative views. “To mobilize these voters will
take a lot of grass-roots organizing efforts, particularly more
labor-union-centered organizing,” Sunkara said. “There is no
simple programmatic solution” — for either party.

Below, I walk through themes from the poll, focusing on those
respondents who said they did not lean toward either party. About 33
percent of them voted for Trump last year and 22 percent voted for
Biden, with the remaining voting for a third party or not voting.

YouGov, a large nonpartisan pollster, conducted the poll, in
collaboration with Jacobin and the Center for Working-Class Politics,
a new progressive group.

Politics isn’t just issues

Nothing produced a more positive response from poll respondents than
hearing that a candidate was a small-business owner
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It offered a bigger lift than any political position or demographic
feature, and it was popular across Black, Latino and white
respondents.

Voters also had positive feelings about candidates who were listed as
being teachers
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veterans
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or construction workers. Lawyers fared less well, and Fortune 500
C.E.O.s did worst of all.

Source: YouGov, The Center for Working-Class Politics, Jacobin

It’s a reminder that big business and small business have very
different images — and that Trump’s victory depended on selling
himself as a brash entrepreneur rather than a bland corporate manager
like Mitt Romney.

Race is undeniably vexing

Many Black working-class swing voters are attracted to candidates who
focus on racial justice — by promising to “end systemic racism,”
for example. Many white working-class swing voters are turned off by
these same positions. There is no simple answer on race for the
Democratic Party, given that it must attract a multiracial coalition
to win.

But the political costs of a campaign message focused on ethnic
identity seem significantly larger than the benefits, Sunkara said.
Among five different candidate sound bites presented to respondents,
the worst-performing was one that the pollsters internally described
as “woke moderate.” Its first sentence sounds like something out
of a corporate mission statement:

Our unity is our strength, and our diversity is our power. But for too
long, special interests have blocked critical progress in addressing
systemic racism, climate change, and access to affordable health care.
We need creative leaders who will fight for our values, listen to the
experts, and make real change happen.

Populism is popular

The second best-performing sound bite was one that pollsters
internally referred to as “Republican.” It warned that “freedom
is under threat from radical socialists, arrogant liberals and
dangerous foreign influences.”

Yet the most successful sound bite was the “progressive populist”
one. It was as pugnacious as the Republican entry, albeit with
different targets:

This country belongs to all of us, not just the superrich. But for
years, politicians in Washington have turned their backs on people who
work for a living. We need tough leaders who won’t give in to the
millionaires and the lobbyists, but will fight for good jobs, good
wages, and guaranteed health care for every single American.

Source: YouGov, The Center for Working-Class Politics, Jacobin

Populism has its limits

Working-class swing voters tend to favor generous versions of
Medicare, Social Security and other universal government benefits,
polls consistently show. But they also responded positively in this
poll to candidates promising vaguely to “cut government spending.”

And while Democratic-leaning working-class voters liked a “Medicare
for all” message, swing working-class voters preferred candidates
who instead promise to “increase access to affordable health
care.”

Americans are mostly progressive on economics
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but Democrats can still run too far left on these issues.

Source: YouGov, The Center for Working-Class Politics, Jacobin

You can read the full poll results here
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(If you do, note that the beginning of the report focuses on a
Democratic-leaning group of working-class voters — who are relevant
to primary elections — rather than the swing voters who have been my
focus.)

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