As the field of Democratic presidential candidates continues to grow, the outstanding strategic question for the party remains, “What is the best path forward for victory in 2020?”
Any realistic assessment of President Trump’s geographic and demographic strengths leads to the conclusion that Democrats need to focus first and foremost on Trump’s backstop of white working class voters in the upper Midwest—particularly, the trio of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin that, along with Florida, tipped the Electoral College in his favor in 2016. Trump is a deeply unpopular president nationally, but he retains a hold on many voters in these states. Any Democrat hoping to pull off the difficult task of unseating an incumbent president—even one as divisive as Trump—must be able to mobilize base Democratic voters and cut into his margins with white non-college educated voters in these trio of states.
The above excerpt was originally published in The American Prospect.
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