Day: November 13, 2019

Yeah, I am still a Klobuchar man, but I feel this will come down to Biden vs. Warren. So, who has the upper hand, and why? Who would do better vs. Trump?

Well, some of what is in this article surprised me:

It is often posited, for instance, that Democrats face a choice between a moderate who might win back a crucial sliver of white working-class voters who flipped from Barack Obama to Donald Trump, or a progressive who might mobilize a new coalition of young progressives, perhaps especially in the rapidly diversifying Sun Belt states.

But for the most part, these choices are not grounded in the attitudes of the electorate in the most competitive states.

Instead, the polls’ results on persuadable and low-turnout voters suggest that the Democratic focus on Obama-to-Trump voters, or on low-turnout progressives, is largely misplaced.

The party’s leading candidates have not yet reached the real missing piece of the Democratic coalition: less educated and often younger voters who are not conservative but who disagree with the party’s cultural left and do not share that group’s unrelenting outrage at the president’s conduct. […]

One might have also assumed that Elizabeth Warren’s real weakness would be among white, working-class voters. It was Mrs. Clinton’s great weakness and Mr. Biden’s supposed strength. Some parts of Ms. Warren’s background — a liberal college professor from Massachusetts — would not seem to make her a natural fit.

Ms. Warren isn’t particularly strong among white voters without a college degree. But this is not the biggest source of her gap with Mr. Biden in our general election polling: For starters, she underperforms Mr. Biden among well-educated white voters by even more than she does among white working-class voters.

Her challenge is particularly great in the best-educated areas. In census tracts where at least 45 percent have a college degree, she leads Mr. Trump by 15 points, compared with Mr. Biden’s 23-point lead.

She struggles with politically moderate, educated voters. Here is a summary by the author:

Note: a high turnout election might not hurt Trump.

Back to the main article:

The lower level of education, in particular, presents a unifying challenge for the left: It makes it harder for them to win over or mobilize irregular voters. Today’s activist left draws its intellectual energy from critiques of capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy and structures of domination. These have their origins in academia, and while they have spread widely in recent years, their advocates rely on academic language like intersectionality and white privilege. Many younger, well-educated liberals are immersed in these arguments, and they believe they have almost a moral obligation to challenge structures of power.

Older or less educated voters, on the other hand, might have no idea what they’re talking about. Some could be baffled by the argument that there could be a Black History Month but not a White History Month. Others simply might not share the same deep, systematic critique of American society. It is no surprise that voters like these would say that political correctness has gone too far, as our polling showed.

And yes, I am aware of the arguments made by today’s young liberal activists….but I reject many of them as being, well, crackpot arguments.