Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and lost the electoral college. A redistribution of about 100,000 votes of her 2.5 million estimated margin (actually, D. Wasserman thinks the margin will be higher) across 3 states gets her the win (that’s about 3% to 4% of her total PV margin).
While that’s an interesting statistical perspective, the truth is we lost the election because we only got 37% of the white vote. We need to hit 40% or higher nationwide to win nationally. So how do we get to that magic number? I think we only need to make minor adjustments to get to 40+% of the white vote. Here are my 4 key points:
1. De-emphasize gun control as a national issue. Encourage regional cooperation to address flows of guns across state lines. Many states are doing a good job passing referenda and laws that limit guns. I would prefer an approach that said, “I believe in the 2nd amendment. The case law is clear that states are the best place to address each community’s preferences on controls. Buy all the guns you want. Just follow the law, don’t shoot your neighbors and don't shoot me.” I think that alone gets to the magic number in many of the midwestern states that we lost. I say this as someone who is very pro-gun control and was all-in with Clinton’s approach. Yet, I feel like as a national issue there is not much we can get done and it will cost too much political capital relative to our other needs. Let the states and localities handle it. A President’s agenda must be more focused.
2. Take the outside-in approach to campaigning. Do more events in rural/exurb, suburb and then metro city. I do think lack of physical presence in core blue states (and swing regions) made HRC vulnerable to a big poll drop post-Comey. DT invested a lot of time in these states and he reaped the benefits by improving over Romney #s in most of the swing counties. If you look at county level data, DT got big swings in places like Erie, Scranton/Wilkes Barre and Allentown in PA; Wayne County in MI; Pinellas, Pt. St. Lucie and Monroe Counties in FL. This is where the election was lost. Not among the economically disadvantaged or insecure, but among whites who earn well and had voted for Obama in 2008/2012 and among Berners who didn’t show up to vote or voted 3rd party. HRC didn’t have a lot of appearances in these regions. DT did. I think more physical presence would’ve stanched the bleeding across these counties and delivered her the win.
3. Talk up the Clinton/Obama economic policies that created jobs and prepared the country to meet global challenges. Address any regional displacement w/specific plans, but emphasize how all regions have benefited from free trade for survival. The policies of our last 2 center-left Presidents have been proven to work. Yet, each time that we sought a 3rd term, the story of that economy got lost in the negativity surrounding the campaign.
This means dismissing the Bernie Sanders argument against free trade and also his implicit critique that the Obama/Bill Clinton era didn’t do anything for the middle class. Obama won in 2008 because people had a favorable view of the Clinton years and thought he would push in that direction. That’s why he won white swing voters over the more experienced and more trusted McCain. Similarly, in 4 years time, the Obama economy will look golden to many voters. Dems did not tell the story of the Obama years well, because the Berner movement kept diminishing the accomplishments with no reference to history. Like DT, Bernie Sanders created his own reality and sold it to a slice of voters that proved significant in the outcome of the election.
On the “trade” issue, this will require Dems to get a bit more detailed to breakdown the negative buzzword that it has become. There are 3 aspects: trade deals (tariffs & non-tariff barriers), outsourcing (manufacturing and labor) and automation. Of the 3, trade deals actually benefit American workers the most. The other 2 occur in spite of trade deals. We need to tell people the truth about trade and not be afraid to tell Bernie Sanders that he doesn’t understand the issue and has no achievable roadmap to improve the lives of the middle class in a global economy.
4. Incorporate the newer left groups into the party and turn them into organizing arms (e.g., BLM). The Obama years (and Occupy Wall St.) yielded various new movements that need to be co-opted into the Dem movement to become organizing arms in the way that the NRA and churches do for the GOP. If we can do that, the Dem Party can run much of its outreach in its strongest metro areas in a much more low profile way with higher returns. Like the GOP interest groups, these Dem interest groups tend to be focused on a few key issues. The Obama team successfully had such arrangements (informal) with the pro-marijuana legalization movements (e.g., CO). I think a guy like Keith Ellison should be able to reach out and form co-operative partnerships with left leaning groups where we pick 1 or 2 issues on which our party will stand firmly aligned while they give the party more freedom of movement on other areas.
There’s a lot more that can be discussed here, but these are 4 basic starting points to improving our vote distribution across the country.