How Democrats can rebuild a winning, multiracial coalition

“None of us won.” Those were the dispirited words of an Ohio Trump voter shortly after his candidate defeated Hillary Clinton, shared during one of roughly a million front-porch conversations that Working America had with working-class voters throughout 2016.

The lack of enthusiasm for President Trump, even among many of his own voters, should give Democrats some hope as they meet this weekend in Atlanta to elect a new party chair. But it should also give them pause. For it threatens to deepen the cynicism of working-class Americans who doubt that any politician—conventional or not—will address the economic insecurity that’s plagued them for decades.

{mosads}But there is a way forward for Democrats. We can rebuild a winning multiracial coalition if we’re willing to learn the hard lessons of 2016.

A growing body of evidence from the election shows that the Democratic Party skimped on its ground game and failed to engage working-class voters early enough on the economic issues that drive them. African-American and millennial turnout dipped in crucial battleground states, and across the country white working-class Obama voters swung decisively to Trump.

To understand why Democrats failed to connect with these voters, and how we can reach them moving forward, Working America conducted a detailed study of election results and economic conditions in the five most competitive battleground states: Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Across those five states, Hillary Clinton received 1 million fewer votes in 2016 than Barack Obama did in 2012. And in every state except Michigan, Democrats lost competitive Senate races. The email server controversy and GOP voter suppression can explain only so much of this debacle. These losses have been building for years. Except when Obama was on the ballot, Democrats have been clobbered in these states every election cycle since 2008.

We have a good idea now of what won’t work for Democrats. Here are three lessons that suggest what will:

Lesson One: Base and swing voters are both crucial. Even in the metro counties of these five states, where Democrats were supposedly strong, Clinton underperformed Obama by nearly 200,000 votes. And the big drop-off—more than 800,000 votes—came in the nonurban counties where so many white working-class voters live. A recent study by Hart Research showed that millions of these voters are open to progressive ideas. But Democrats failed to reach them because for years they’ve had so little presence in nonurban counties. Many of these areas are ground zero in the opioid crisis that has ravaged small-town America. These are the places where mortality rates of middle-age whites are rising and employment rates are falling. But because Democrats are absent, the right-wing megaphone defines the problem and impedes progressive solutions.

Lesson Two: Connect year-round and on the ground. The all-too-familiar refrain that Democrats show up only at election time certainly rang true in 2016, especially in communities of color. Despite consistently high levels of support for Democrats, these communities have seen little redress of educational, economic, criminal justice and other disparities. Aggravating this lack of progress, in the most critical battleground states, significantly fewer voters reported being contacted by the Clinton campaign in 2016 than the Obama campaign in 2012. Clinton had a much greater TV advertising advantage over Trump than Obama did over Mitt Romney, suggesting that TV ads are no substitute for face-to-face contact with voters.

Progressives must be on the ground year-round, reaching out to people of color, millennials and women as well as the millions of white working-class moderates who are open to a progressive agenda. In 2008 and 2012, white working-class moderates were a crucial part of Obama’s success in battleground states. If their support for Clinton had not cratered in 2016, she almost certainly would have won Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and with them the presidency.

Lesson Three: Think big and be bold. The buoyant protests and boisterous town halls of the last month show the hunger in America for bold and progressive politics. Small-bore solutions will no longer do. Democrats must embrace policies that honestly address the deep anxieties of working-class voters. Incremental solutions focused on narrow segments of the population are not compelling to workers worried about losing their jobs at any moment and experiencing community-level distress. We must fight harder to win economic security for all working-class Americans.

If we take these lessons to heart, Democrats can reverse the rout of 2016. With deep organizing that begins now—not a few months before the next election—we can counter the right-wing noise machine that was so crucial to Donald Trump’s success. Through our work over the last 14 years running a large-scale progressive field canvass, we have seen that when we talk face-to-face with working-class voters, we build a real base for progressive politics. And when Democrats connect with those voters, we can win.

Matt Morrison is political director of Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO with more than 3 million members.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.