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It Wasn't the Revenge of the Working Class Voter in 2024. It Was Something Much Worse for Dems.

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  November 11, 2024 6:30 AM

In 2016, it was the revenge of the white working-class voter and the forgotten American. Hillary Clinton also failed to realize she was bleeding with a crucial voter group until it was too late. Yet, Trump lost the popular vote, which gave woke leftists and far-left loons a crutch to make their case that identitarian politics, transanity, and other whacko action items should remain front and center of Democrats’ messaging to voters. The 2022 midterms brought the red mirage, where pollsters oversampled Republicans, leading to an epic underperformance by Republicans in what was supposed to be a tsunami cycle. When polls showed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in trouble, or at the very least not where they should be against a man liberals view as Satan incarnate, they leaned on the midterms. 

Any political analyst knows a midterm election and a presidential contest are two different beasts, which led to adding another layer of density to this liberal academic bubble where reality and facts don’t exist. Liberals thought Florida was in play, and Kamala would win it. Yet, it’s the Trump supporter who is ignorant. No, it’s the American liberal who is the true mental invalid, too stupid to differentiate what is a bad idea and too condescending and self-righteous to admit total and complete defeat. For these liberals, they needn’t look far regarding where Trump made his most significant gains. It’s right in their wealthy enclaves.

That’s right—Trump ran up the score in rural America, but his most extensive and, for now, where he made his decisive gains was in America's rich, urban, and suburban areas. The MAGA tsunami washed ashore and breached these liberal enclaves. If true, what a repudiation of the Democratic Party. If it holds, we’re talking Republican rule for the foreseeable future, at least through 2028 (via WaPo) [emphasis mine]: 

Donald Trump won more votes than he had before almost everywhere in the United States. Voters shifted right in rural areas, in suburbs and even in New York City. But it’s the urban areas that should unnerve Democrats most. These places are led by liberal mayors and city councils. They are diverse, and they are economically powerful. 

Take a look at America’s 50 biggest local economies (as measured by GDP in 2022). In 2020, Trump won only one of them. In 2024, he took nine and made significant gains in nearly all of them. He flipped Miami, Phoenix (Maricopa County), Orange County, Calif. (near Los Angeles) and Nassau County, N.Y., on Long Island. It was the best showing in urban areas for a Republican since 2004. His gains reversed an urban shift toward Democrats that had seemed locked in since the Obama years. 

[…] 

While Trump is known for his appeal in left-behind parts of America, in this election, voters in the wealthiest places made the biggest shift toward Republicans. 

[…] 

Democrats lost 3.7 percent of American voters overall compared with 2020, and they lost 4.2 percent of those who live in areas where the median household income is over $105,000. 

What happened? In large part, the shift reflects how much voters hate inflation. Across all income groups, they registered their frustration with the economy under President Joe Biden. 

[…] 

Urban areas with large non-White populations seem to have felt the most frustration. Much has been written about how Hispanic men were drawn to Trump in this election. But in cities, there’s more to it than that. The data suggests that urban, non-White, working-class people have been turning away from Democrats and increasingly voting Republican for the past few election cycles. 

[…] 

As the chart below shows, major metropolitan counties with a large share of non-White voters shifted more toward Trump than more heavily White urban areas did. 

So, it’s not so much white working-class voter revenge but the uprising of nonwhites against the increasing ideological rigidity and condescension from white progressives, who are way out of step with every normal voter group in America. That is, nonwhites and whites who aren’t woke see racial progress but know more needs to be done. They recognize progress; they know Jim Crow is dead. The white progressive, self-righteous, overeducated, and totally insane, sees America as Apartheid South Africa, which is way outside the mainstream. This cohort controls the messaging and agenda-setting of the Democratic Party. The lexicon used in the college faculty lounge is not America—that’s partially why Trump clinched the popular vote in this MAGA landslide, besides the economic anxiety and frustration with inflation. Democrats thought abortion and ‘saving democracy' would drive them to a landslide win. it gutted them instead. Also, Trump won the voter group who said ‘democracy is very threatened.’ 

Youyou Zhou and Heather Long, who wrote this autopsy, ended it with a warning: “If Democrats can’t again appeal to non-White and working-class voters in cities, this election may signal the start of a long deterioration in the party’s voter base.” 

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And thus far, Democrats haven’t learned a thing. Princeton Professor Eddie Glaude, everyone: 

The impact of the MAGA wave reached down ticket and even state legislature races, where Michigan Democrats lost their full grip on the state legislature. Gov. Tim Walz might lose control of the Minnesota House. In New Jersey, where Kamala only won by five points, there were massive swings to Trump, who won Atlantic County, a first for a Republican since 1988. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district in New York also saw a 24-point swing to Trump. 

The evidence of MAGA being the majority is everywhere. Democrats need to understand it to win again. Let’s hope they don’t because these voters are definitionally the swinging type. Liberal America is too awash with snobs, bigots, and all-around morons to turn this around right now.