Will democrats ever improve with WWC voters?

[Bootes Void]

It been a downhill trend since 2000 or maybe 1980 depending on how you look at it. Will they ever improve with WWC? Or will reach a point where they pretty much vote like a minority group with support upwards of 80%+

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

It depends. Weirdly i'd be more confident in saying yes if Trump had been reelected. With Biden in office it'll take until at least 2026 for the possibility of backlash against a recession that occurred under a Republican president (which I think is the best scenario for Democrats winning them back) and by then it might be too late since current trends will be deeply baked in.

[vileplume]

It been a downhill trend since 2000 or maybe 1980 depending on how you look at it. Will they ever improve with WWC? Or will reach a point where they pretty much vote like a minority group with support upwards of 80%+

Ever is a long time.

However in the short to medium term the rural WWC is probably gone though there is room to claw back with those who live in more urban areas, however said voters won't exactly be reliable.

Eventually though, 'race' and indeed the rural/urban cultural divide will become a much less salient concepts and politics will realign along different lines which are difficult to predict this far out. It is then you could see the Democrats regain a solid foothold in rural counties where they've collapsed recently. But this is a long way off, don't expect any miracles in the foreseeable expect maybe a dead cat bounce at the tail end of an unpopular Republican administration.

[Alben Barkley]

It would have seemed absurd in 2004 to think that Democrats would ever win wealthy suburban places like Bloomfield Hills, MI.

It would have seemed equally absurd at that time (or at least not long before then) to think that Republicans would ever win a place like Elliott County, KY.

Both of those things happened this year. And it wasn't even particularly close in either case.

To further illustrate the point, two bellwether counties with perfect streaks going back to the 1950s lost that status this year by voting for Trump: Vigo County, IN and Valencia County, NM. Literally every election since the 1950s, you could have correctly called the winner solely by knowing who won those two counties. Until you couldn't.

Anyway, as a wise man once said, "forever is a mighty long time." And it's certainly possible that at some point within even the relatively near future (i.e. the next 20 years or so), let alone beyond that, things will have changed enough for Democrats to win back or at least significantly improve with WWC voters. I mean, who could have predicted in 2004 that Donald Trump of all people would be the man who would win over rural America like few if any other candidates before?

[H. Ross Peron]

Ironically, there is a negative trade-off in that I fear that any improvements in racial polarization (such as this year) will worsen urban/rural polarization while conversely reducing urban/polarization will increase racial polarization.

Democrats face generational problems with the White Working-Class. The Greatest Generation and older Silents (born say before 1935) who remember the Depression, the New Deal, and FDR to any degree are almost all gone now. Younger Silents and Boomer white working-class instead mainly remember Eisenhower and the cultural tumult of the late Sixties. Much of the Boomer white working class was still open to voting Democratic, especially Carter, Clinton, and even Obama, but they seem to have decisively swung towards Trump and the Republicans. The Gen X WWC is similarly very conservative due to having grown up under Reagan.

I think the only hope of a significant improvement with the WWC lies with Millennial and Zoomer WWC voters, especially those who've never enjoyed secure blue-collar work and have been in the retail/service sector precariat all their lives. Unionization efforts as well as serious industrial policy and a rejection of Wokeness (the Millennial/Zoomer WWC is not really socially conservative outside of its Evangelical component but they despise wokeness) will have to be the bedrock on which to win them over. Given their severe social alienation, an integrated agenda of secure jobs, generous benefits, and cultural understanding is needed. Andrew Yang's messaging in this area was terrific, though I reject his technocratic solution of a UBI.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

They have to, or progressive governance is likely impossible for the next 20 years. Recovering to Obama-level support (which was fairly robust in many places) should be doable, though I don't have high hopes given current elite Democratic Party discourse (Trump voters are racist), and that it is swimming against an international trend.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Sooner or later they'll do that, but I would guess that at that point the socioeconomic/racial discourse will have changed and rendered the very expression quaint and out of the mainstream, kind of like talking about "party X gained with Yankees" in 2020.

[TML]

There is a sure fire way to do this - stop catering to special interests and other elites inside the DC bubble - but it remains to be seen whether current party leaders are willing to do that.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

"I say good sir, shall the Republican Party ever be able to win electoral votes in the old confederacy?"

- Talk Elections Newspaper column, 1888

[Red Wall]

I used to believe it was possible for the WWC to be more Republican than Hispanics were Democratic with both demos trending towards voting as a bloc.

Now it's a slam dunk.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Yes, but the days of huge landslides like 2008/2012 and more like 300 from D's 291/247, blue walls are gonna be the norm. There aren't gonna be 413 maps anymore

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Yes, but the days of huge landslides like 2008/2012 and more like 300 from D's 291/247, blue walls are gonna be the norm. There aren't gonna be 413 maps anymore

I wouldn't assume that's more of an inevitability then anything else.