Here are some valuable things I learned from my time politic-ing over summer vacation and the Fall months:
The Democratic Party is slowly losing African-American voters. Despite the fact that African-Americans are the party’s most loyal supporters, I talked to many black voters in my D+21 district that were less than excited to vote. One of them was kind enough to take the time to explain to me why he was choosing not to vote in 2018. He told me there was no point and nothing would change, especially for black people. While I disagreed that voting in more (and better) Democrats wouldn’t change anything, it’s a narrative that I’ve heard before. I’ve listened, watched, and read about/from many black people who felt betrayed by the Democrats. And they’re kinda right. Flint received no help, Chicago is still broken, Obama and the Dems signed a Blue Lives Matter bill instead of a Black Lives Matter bill after Ferguson. This Vice video on black conservatives echoed a lot of this type of stuff. It’s something we Dems should take note on. The black vote is taken for granted too much and we will lose more and more of it if we continue to take it for granted. On the same note, I would not be surprised if the vital Virginian black voters don’t come out for Democrats in 2020 after all of this crap.
Asian-Americans don’t vote enough. As a Korean-American, I have seen this with my own family. They just don’t care. I don’t know if it’s because they don’t see how politics will personally affect them (similar to unenthused black voters) or if they just genuinely dislike politics. It seems as though the only thing that makes Asians care about politics is when their kid doesn’t get into Harvard lol. But on a serious note, the Democratic Party can get a lot of new voters if they make a concerted effort to engage this demographic with the lowest turnout rate. At the same time, it’s also up to Asian-Americans like myself to get other Asian-Americans to vote.
The 2016 Primary lives on. One of the most memorable conversations I had was with one older white woman who hated, hated Bernie. Like, I am used to that kind of wrath on Bernie-Hillary online, but I never expected that someone would direct that level of hatred to me in real life. After hearing my spiel of Medicare For All, no corporate money, tuition-free college, and absolutely not one peep about Bernie, she full-out (no joke) scolded at me on my possible love (remember, she didn’t even know I liked Bernie) for Bernie. She took it up to the level of blaming “us stupid kids” for giving Trump the election like young people were the biggest Trumpers. This divisiveness pains me. I didn’t enjoy that argument; that’s not what we should be doing now. Unfortunately, this was far from the only encounter I had where 2016 came up. So to y’all saying Bernie voters are the only ones picking fights: it’s not one-sided. It was both Hillary and Bernie supporters who brought up 2016. But back to the point: people are so not over 2016.
Latino-Americans (at least in Kent and Seattle, WA) love progressives and really want to abolish ICE. Like black people, while by no means Trump lovers, some Latinos were a bit lukewarm about coming out to vote for Dems. But unlike black people, they were far more excited about Sarah Smith, a progressive candidate (who FYI I volunteered for). Two conversations really stood out to me. One was with a single mother who was not thrilled to see me at first but took a door hanger and read it. Moments later, she earnestly told me that she will open her ballot for the first time in years to vote for Sarah. What influenced her? The fact that instead of deporting in record numbers and tear gassing migrants like Obama did, Sarah was for abolishing ICE and pledged to decriminalize immigration. The other conversation was with an older Latina woman who broke down into tears after talking about ICE and immigration. “I feel so alone and like no one cares at my work about immigrants,” she explained, “this gives me happiness.” (Disclosure: this was a conversation that one of my fellow Sarah Smith 2018 canvassers had, but it belongs in this diary).
Being a woman candidate helps. I can’t tell you how many people (mostly women) have told me they will support Sarah simply because she is a woman. And I cannot tell you how happy I was to hear that after being on the losing side of that argument during the 2016 Primaries. But seriously, people validly want more women in office. And consequently, women candidates had an electoral edge in 2018. FiveThirtyEight actually did a study that also showed women performed better than men in 2018. Should you only vote for someone because of their gender and party affiliation? I don’t think so, but being a woman (or black, Latino, LGBT, etc.) does have merit. And in 2018, voters agreed.
Republicans like progressives. This was unexpected. Very unexpected. We saw this not only in Sarah’s race in WA-09 but in California’s Senate race. Kevin De Leon, a progressive, won virtually all the Republican areas in CA. Sarah also won a lot of Republican support, especially in the reddest parts of the district. There are multiple reasons why I think this may have occurred in the WA-09 race:
- Republicans really hate Adam Smith, the incumbent Democrat.
- Uninformed Republicans thought Sarah was challenging Adam from the right.
- Republicans actually like progressive policies more than neoliberal policies.
I think #1 is most likely the reason why. But it’s possible many Republicans actually do like progressives better than establishment moderate Dems. I had some luck with Republican voters (it was a minefield though: one wrong word and they’d shut the door). Talking about 4th amendment rights worked a lot, especially since Adam really loves the NSA spying on us. Also hammering on the fact Adam wants to raise everyone’s taxes (this is code for raising poor people’s taxes) worked. And another thing worked well too (see next).
Everyone hates corporate money. I mean, who likes corporations buying our elections, right? This is another thing, perhaps the biggest thing, that worked with courting Republican votes for Sarah. Laying it down that Sarah did not take corporate money (and Adam Smith did) worked very well with Republicans who were forced to choose between two non-conservative Democrats. So candidates (Democrat and Republican) if you want to win, don’t take corporate money. It will help you win over voters, and, it’s just the right fucking thing to do.
Israel is a touchy topic for old Jewish voters. As if what happened to Ilhan wasn’t clear enough, Israel is a touchy subject for many, especially older Jewish voters that are old enough to remember the Holocaust and the formation of Israel. (PLEASE READ: I really don’t want to talk about my thoughts on Israel here and now. So please readers, don’t attack me (or support me) for my stance on Israel right here. I just want to talk about what I learned while canvassing.) So, I knocked on a Jewish home (I didn’t even know they were Jewish until the man told me) and he almost right away asked me about Sarah’s stance on Israel. I responded, “Sarah believes Israel needs to held accountable for their human rights abuses.” Mind you, I did not even know he was Jewish but this was still not even that inflammatory. Nevertheless, he immediately exploded. But unlike the anti-Bernie woman I mentioned above, it really hurt me. There’s something about being called an anti-Semite by a Jewish man who was probably alive to see the genocide of six million Jews in Europe that hits you hard. It hurt for a whole week. I was scared to go to Jewish households (there I also learned Jewish homes have that small piece of wood nailed to the frame of their front door, so I also learned how to spot a Jewish home). But enough self-pitying. That day I learned that Israel is an extremely emotional and personal subject for Jewish voters. But I still hope it’s an issue we can discuss, debate, and grapple with in the coming years.
Thank you for reading my diary! I might make a Part 2 if I think of more stuff and I am up for writing it down.