The Democratic Party needs to consider this

The Democratic Party will have to think about the strategic areas that led to the loss of the election to President-elect Donald Trump, after the loss of running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Vice President Kamala Harris.

According to the Associated Press, Trump was able to form a coalition with a core campaign message of deporting illegal immigrants and using tariffs to restore American manufacturing. This coalition was primarily composed of older voters, voters from rural areas, white voters, and voters without college degrees, all of whom supported him.

What can the Democratic Party take away from this setback for the next election?

Get back in touch with the working class

The Democratic Party has promoted itself as the working class party since the Great Depression, promising to strengthen the social safety net and defend workers’ rights and unions.

However, after years of industrial collapse, Trump has amassed a base of devoted working-class followers who have defected from the Democrats since his first presidential campaign in 2016.

In a harsh speech Wednesday afternoon, Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats and was reelected Tuesday night, criticized the Democrats’ conduct.

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders said. “First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well.”

Working people have long felt alienated from Democrats, according to Jared Abbott, director of the Center for Working-Class Politics, who spoke to Newsweek.

“The Democrats have presented themselves as the party that would improve working-class people’s lives via tangible advantages….And despite some significant advances, Democratic presidents have just not been delivering on that fact,” Abbott said.

Abbott said that although certain programs, like the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of President Barack Obama, have helped working people, Democrats have lost some of their base because they are targeting voters who are richer and more educated.

“Democrats court more well-to-do, more affluent, more highly educated voters, and they are perceived by many working-class people as not relating meaningfully,” Abbott said. “And that sort of gets bundled together with the lack of material gains that working-class people feel.”

According to Abbott, the message is crucial for reaching the working population.

“Much of Trump’s appeal to working-class people was visceral, was emotional,” he said. “The Democrats need to find candidates who can effectively relate to working-class people in a way that most Democrats are typically not able to do,” he said, echoing their feelings of rage and grief at being left behind. It isn’t too difficult. What they must be saying is hardly a mystery.
Modify their digital approach

Trump successfully used digital channels to contact millions of people with the assistance of tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Musk spent months using Twitter to spread the message of the Trump campaign after spending $44 billion to buy the social media site, which he rebranded as X.

Trump used podcasts to reach a wider audience in addition to having a positive social media presence.

His three-hour participation on the world’s largest podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience, in October had received 47 million views on YouTube. The “unedited” and “uncensored” version of Trump that was shown was lauded by commenters.

Additionally, he conducted online interviews with Tucker Carlson and Theo Von, the next two most popular podcasts on Spotify in terms of listenership. These interviews received millions of views and probably reached a substantial number of voters, some of whom were younger, who may not ordinarily be interested in mainstream media.

Harris appeared on a few podcasts, such as Call Her Daddy, which is Spotify’s number five podcast. She did not, however, appear on Joe Rogan when they were unable to come to an agreement.

While millions of people listened to Trump’s podcast interviews, the Harris team, in an attempt to win over younger voters, built a map for the popular shooting game Fortnite that prohibited firearms and only drew a few hundred players.

“It’s about time the Democratic Party come to terms with the fact that a vast majority of the American public lives in a media environment—from Fox to Twitter to podcasts—that functions as a Republican propaganda machine,” Matt McDermott, a strategist for the Democratic Party, “Ignoring this reality is no longer a tenable solution.”

Retain Latino voters

It seems like Harris hasn’t done enough to excite one of the most rapidly expanding and powerful voting blocs in the country.

According to the Associated Press, Harris scored worse with Latino voters than Joe Biden did in 2020, with Latino males in particular moving 14 points in favor of Trump, even though the majority of Latino voters backed him.

Political science professor Gabriel R. Sanchez of the University of New Mexico told Newsweek that in order to regain the support of Latino voters, Democrats would have to concentrate on economic problems.

“Latino voters have been highly concerned with the state of the economy over the last two election cycles, with many reporting in surveys that their financial situations have gotten worse as they struggle to keep up with inflation,” Sanchez said. “Despite not agreeing with Trump’s broader economic platform or his demeanor, many Latinos who voted for him in this election just had greater faith in him and the Republicans to put the economy first and combat inflation.

This is a crucial argument because the Trump administration shouldn’t use their impressive results with Latino voters as approval to forward their agenda. It is evident from the surveys and focus groups I have conducted with Latino voters over the last two years that they oppose mass deportations, abortion prohibition, and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Latinos want Trump and the Republican Party to lower costs and make their families’ personal financial circumstances better. If there is a Latino community mandate, that is it.

“This gives Democrats a path to gain back higher support among Latinos, including Latino men who have moved toward Trump and Republicans across the last two presidential cycles.”