The battle for Philadelphia may not be a slam-dunk for Democrats, and local and national officials are worried. They see the numbers—they’re not stupid. The Philadelphia Inquirer decided to get into the trenches in the brawl for the City of Brotherly Love, where they found Democrats have significant problems when it comes to keeping their historical voter blocs intact. It’s not about the result here since the city isn’t going to flip red. However, Biden only won Pennsylvania with 80,000 votes, and marginal shifts among the white working class can alter the race. To compound matters, non-white and Latino communities are also drifting toward the Republican Party.
The most damning indictment of the Democrats’ leftward shift into crazy town on public policy is right there in the numbers, which the publication highlighted: “Philadelphia precincts with the highest proportion of residents in poverty shifted furthest to the right. Precincts with the lowest poverty rates shifted furthest left.” The rich are in a bubble, and they vote Democratic.
In deep-blue Philly, working class voters are shifting toward Republicans https://t.co/qvm4aXTOvt
— Philadelphia Inquirer Politics (@PoliticsINQ) October 2, 2024
The paper spoke to various activists on the ground, and most who went on the record noted the messaging problem for Democrats, most notably that no one cares about defending democracy when you can’t keep the lights on. The lack of support among the working classes keeps some Democrats up at night, while another concern is getting people animated to vote. The article says the Democrats have a crackerjack get-out-the-vote operation, but talk is cheap (via Inquirer):
Gabriel Lopez grew up in a family of Democrats in the Kensington neighborhood of deep-blue Philadelphia. So in 2016, the first presidential election he was old enough to vote in, he picked Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.
But Lopez, now 27, says his views have changed. He switched his registration to Republican this year, and he plans to vote for Trump, who’s running for president a third time.
[…]
Lopez embodies one of Democrats’ biggest problems in Pennsylvania: working-class voters in Philadelphia, a once reliable voting bloc for the party, have drifted right in recent years. And they’ve been disproportionately affected by rising prices over the last several years, an issue many blame Democrats for.
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The shift was most stark in working-class communities. An Inquirer analysis of election results found that, in 2020, Democrats lost the most ground in neighborhoods where education levels were lowest and poverty rates were highest.
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Class and voting patterns are closely tied in Philadelphia. Between 2016 and 2020, the Philadelphia precincts with the highest proportion of residents in poverty shifted furthest to the right, according to the Inquirer’s analysis.
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Vote totals in Philadelphia’s working-class communities have moved right, regardless of race, but in 2020, the most pronounced losses for Democrats were in the city’s majority-Latino areas.
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Rafael Álvarez Febo, a Puerto Rican and LGBTQ community leader based in North Philadelphia, said Trump’s anti-establishment rhetoric is appealing to some Latino men who believe government has failed them.
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Álvarez Febo said he hasn’t seen a renewed effort from Democrats to win back those voters, or targeted outreach to working-class residents on key issues like inflation.
“They’re saying Kamala is going to save our democracy,” Álvarez Febo said. “That means very little for people who can’t keep the lights on.”
The Republican Party has become the real party of the working and middle classes—that’s been trending since post-2012. The Democrats are the regional party comprised of urban and coastal bastions where predominantly wealthy, white liberals live. They don’t care about working people, mainly mocking them for their lack of money and education. They lecture and condescend to those who aren’t like them, which is partially why nonwhite working-class voters, particularly men, are drifting into the GOP.
Democrats in the piece think their issues are communications-based. No, your policies are atrocious, and no one cares about what wine-guzzling, whiny, snobby, wealthy white leftists believe, especially when they feel we should kowtow to what they consider to be the top issues facing the country.
It’s the Marie Antionettes versus the regular folk. Don’t forget how that turned out.
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