If Democrats want to win the 2020 election, they’re talking themselves out of it. In fact, they’ve been doing that for quite some time. The impeachment hearings and the debates have showcased the Democrats’ lurch to the Left that’s buoyed by the overly educated, snobby, and America-bashing professional elite that dominates the Northeast and the West Coast. They’re not the majority. It’s not even close, and yet they have an agenda that ruthlessly imposes their way of living on everyone else, especially when it comes to political views. Submit or die is the mantra.
Medicare for All is pie-in-the-sky socialist trash. It costs some $50 trillion over the next decade, destroys hundreds of millions of private health insurance plans, but all of this will be done without middle-class tax increases. No one believes that; the math simply doesn’t work. It’s one of the many issues that are stunningly unpopular with voters and yet 2020 Democrats still peddle it as if it is the next best thing. For the 15 percent of voters who could decide the election, it’s policies like this that could force them into the Trump camp. They are open to voting for either party in 2020. They’re a winnable group for both sides but the Democrats’ affair with Lenin could already have cost them (via NYT):
They are similar in holding ideologically inconsistent views, but they otherwise span all walks of life, based on an analysis of 569 respondents to recent New York Times Upshot/Siena College surveys in the six closest states carried by the president in the 2016 presidential election.
These voters represent 15 percent of the electorate in the battleground states, and they say there’s a chance they’ll vote for either Mr. Trump or the Democrat.
They don’t neatly fit archetypes of swing voters like so-called suburban soccer moms. In fact, men are likelier to be undecided than women. And they are not necessarily the white voters without a college degree, particularly in the Midwest, who decided the last election.
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The size of that persuadable pool depends on how they are defined. Although there is reason to think some voters have more of a partisan lean than they realize, let’s call the 15 percent who are still thinking of voting for Mr. Trump or a Democrat the potentially persuadable.
As a group they are 57 percent male and 72 percent white, and 35 percent have college degrees. Most, 69 percent, say they usually vote for a mix of both Democratic and Republican candidates. Among those who voted in 2016, 48 percent say they voted for Mr. Trump, 33 percent for Hillary Clinton, and 19 percent for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein or no one. Those who voted in the midterm election voted for the Republican congressional candidate by one point.
These potentially persuadable voters are divided on major issues like single-payer health care, immigration and taxes. But they are fairly clear about what they would like from a Democrat. They prefer, by 82 percent to 11 percent, one who promises to find common ground over one who promises to fight for a progressive agenda; and they prefer a moderate over a liberal, 75 percent to 19 percent.
Overall, 40 percent describe themselves as conservative, compared with 16 percent who say they’re liberal. Forty percent are moderate.
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These truly persuadable voters supported Democratic congressional candidates in 2018 by eight points and have less developed views on the presidential race. They support Mr. Biden over the president, 38 percent to 27 percent, but prefer the president to Ms. Warren, 37 to 20. Mr. Sanders is in between, with the president leading him, 34 percent to 32 percent. This group voted for Mr. Trump by a smaller margin in 2016, 37 percent to 30 percent, with the rest casting ballots for minor candidates.
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The white college-educated persuadable voters, in either the broad or narrow definition, have something in common: They may not love the president, but they are not sold on progressives.
They oppose single-payer health care, 60 percent to 37 percent, and oppose free college, 55 to 41.
They disapprove of the president, but only 32 percent disapprove of both his performance and his policies.
Steven Basart, 28, is getting his Ph.D in computer science and describes himself as a Democrat. Yet he would consider voting for Mr. Trump, depending on the Democratic nominee.
If it were Ms. Warren, he’d vote Republican, he said: “I think she’s going too far to the left, which would take our country in a bad direction.”
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The piece is just another example that there are many ways to win an election, to skin the electoral cat as some have said in the past. For example, nonwhite persuadable voters favor single-payer, and favor a Democratic candidate who, like Trump, will continue to take a baseball bat to the D.C. establishment and “bring fundamental, systematic change to American society.” And yet, 50 percent of them view Trump positively.
We have another sign that Elizabeth Warren could spell death for the Democrats in 2020, but Biden being seen as the better choice isn’t on solid ground either. With the Democratic Party base moving leftward, so will Biden if he wants to win. And that means he’ll no longer be “no malarkey,” white working class, and moderate Joe Biden. He’ll just be any other left-wing progressive, which just happens to be part of the Silent Generation. The serial gaffes, the uninspiring agenda—Joe Biden is atop of the heap due to name recognition, but that is certain to change as 2020 heats up.
Yet, with the large share of this group, the far-left policy ideas that are backed by Warren and Sanders, isn’t popular. There are red flags being raised everywhere, even in the NYT, that the core of the 2020 agenda from Democrats isn’t a winner.
Oh, and that's not even touching on their desire for moderation. The Democrats are going full bore on extremism, so good luck with that too.
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