Democrats have spent years hoping that demographic trends would match their destiny. As the country became more racially diverse, the Democratic Party imagined it would become the majority party thanks to support from Asian, Black, and Hispanic voters. According to this vision, American politics would begin to resemble California’s liberal politics.
That won’t work. Instead, Americans of color have shifted to the right over the past decade.
A new New York Times/Siena College poll provides detailed evidence. The poll involved about 1,500 Black and Hispanic Americans, far more than most surveys. (Our polls didn’t focus on Asian voters, but they’ve been changing, too.)
An important fact is that the shift to the right is concentrated among working-class voters (defined as those without a four-year college degree).
I know many Democrats find this pattern infuriating. They wonder how voters of color could do right in the era of Donald Trump, who has a long history of racism. However, the graph above provides a partial explanation. For most Americans, race is not as important a political force as many progressives believe, and economic class is more important.
Most things are not enough
The past four years have highlighted how Democrats exaggerate the political importance of racial identity. After all, Joe Biden promised to nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court (which he did) and chose Kamala Harris to be the first black vice president — now Biden’s successor. He is the Democratic Party candidate. However, Harris’ support among black voters is not as strong as Hillary Clinton’s in 2016.
Biden also adopted the kind of immigrant-friendly policies that Democrats have long believed Hispanic voters support. He loosened border rules early in his term, helping millions of people enter the country. Despite that shift, or perhaps in part because of it, Democrats also lost support among Hispanics.
Harris still wins most voters of color. But Democrats typically need overwhelming margins among these groups to win elections. Significant percentages of them now view Democrats with deep skepticism — about 1 in 5 black voters, 2 in 5 Hispanic voters, and 3 in 5 Asian voters, according to the poll. One person per person.
elite atmosphere
Their skepticism is tied to class in two main ways. First, many working-class voters are dissatisfied with the economy after decades of sluggish income growth. (Black men are having a particularly hard time, Charles Coleman Jr. wrote in a Times Opinion essay, and black men lean more to the right than black women.)
The years immediately before the coronavirus pandemic, the end of President Barack Obama’s term and the first three years of the Trump administration were a happy exception when wages rose significantly. But inflation during Biden’s presidency has made many people even more angry. Our poll found that only 21% of working-class Hispanic voters said Mr. Biden’s policies had helped them personally, compared to 21% who said Mr. Trump’s policies had helped them. was 38%.
More generally, many voters have come to view the Democratic Party as an establishment party. That may sound vaguely atmospheric, but it’s true. President Trump’s disdain for the establishment appeals to disaffected voters of all races. As my colleague Nate Cohn points out, a sizable minority of black and Hispanic voters say “those who are angry with Donald Trump are taking his words too seriously.” That’s what I think.
The second big problem for Democrats is that they mistakenly imagine voters of color to be classic progressives. In fact, white people are more likely to make up the far left wing of the population, a Pew Research Center study found. Although white Democrats have become more liberal in recent decades, many working-class voters of color remain moderate to conservative.
These voters say crime is a big problem, for example. They are uncomfortable with the speed of change on gender issues (which helps explain why President Trump has run so many ads mentioning transgender high school athletes). When it comes to foreign policy, black and Hispanic voters tend to be isolationist, with a Times poll finding that most believe the U.S. should “pay less attention to foreign issues and focus more on domestic issues.” It is shown that he is thinking that.
Immigration may be the most obvious example. Many voters of color are dissatisfied with the increase in immigration in recent years. They worry about the impact on their communities and worry that new arrivals will unfairly skip the line. Our poll shows that more than 40 percent of Black and Hispanic voters support “deporting immigrants who are in the United States illegally to their home countries.” So was support for a border wall.
Multi-ethnic similarities
The bad news for Democrats is that they have adopted a false diagnosis of the American electorate. Not neatly divided by race, people of color are overwhelmingly similar to each other and liberal. This misdiagnosis was a gift to the Republican Party.
The good news for Democrats is that some of their weaknesses overlap with white, Hispanic, black, and Asian voters alike. If the party can find a way to stem the loss of voters of color, it may also be able to win back some white working-class voters. Remember: Americans without a bachelor’s degree still make up about 65% of U.S. adults. In battleground states like Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the percentage is even higher.
RELATED: Democrats’ challenge to Black and Hispanic voters has left the party even more reliant on college-educated white voters and suburbanites, my colleagues Jennifer Medina, Katie Glueck and Ruth Igielnik write. There is.
Campaign details
The main union for Border Patrol agents endorsed Trump at a rally in Arizona. At the event, President Trump pledged to ask Congress to hire 10,000 new employees and give all employees a 10% raise.
President Trump has advocated violence and proposed using the government to attack his enemies. Many of his supporters think this is an act, writes Sean McLeish.
The abortion ban has led some longtime Arizona Republicans to support Harris. Watch the video.
Harris’ campaign aims to cut into Trump’s lead in economic polls and has the backing of business leaders. Their feedback has subtly shaped her financial agenda.
Tim Walz returned to Minnesota over the weekend to hunt pheasants and watch a high school football game. His recent appearances have been aimed at men, the Washington Post reported.
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middle east
Jean Guerrero froze his eggs to enjoy his youth before he met his partner. This expensive procedure should be available to everyone, she writes.
Gail Collins and Bret Stevens discuss Harris and the Senate.
This is David French’s column about abortion in Florida.
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NFL: The Cincinnati Bengals defeated the New York Giants, 17-7. Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow called the game ugly.
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Millennials and Gen Z value happiness, which explains why they spend more money on hobbies and exotic purchases than older generations. Examples include paragliding lessons and a palm-sized hedgehog called Goober.
