A chorus of political analysts on the center left is once again arguing that the Democratic Party must reclaim a significant share of racially and culturally conservative white working-class voters if it is to regain majority status.
John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira have made this case repeatedly in recent years, most exhaustively in their 2023 book, “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?”
They are not alone.
“For Victory in 2024, Democrats Must Win Back the Working Class,” Will Marshall, the founder and president of the Progressive Policy Institute, wrote in October 2023. “Can Democrats Win Back the Working Class?” Jared Abbott and Fred DeVeaux of the Center for Working-Class Politics asked in June 2023; “Democrats Need Biden to Appeal to Working-Class Voters” is how David Byler, the former Washington Post data columnist put it that same month.
However persuasive they are, these arguments raise a series of questions.
First, is the Democratic attempt to recapture white working class voters a fool’s errand? Is this constituency irrevocably committed to the Republican Party — deaf to the appeal of a Democratic Party it sees as committed to racial and cultural liberalism?
Second, do Democrats actually need more white working class voters, a constituency declining in numbers, when they are doing as well as they are with college-educated voters, who make up a growing share of the electorate?
Third, would appeals to the more culturally conservative white working class require backing off or moderating the party’s positions on civil rights, women’s rights, reproductive rights or L.G.B.T.Q. rights in a way that would cause progressives to vote for third-party candidates or fail to vote altogether?
