by cmsellers » Fri Apr 19, 2019 10:22 pm
@Marcuse:
Yes, Trump's approval ratings have consistently been between 37% and 43%, and seem to have mostly settled in the 41-42% band. If it weren't for the economy, which he inherited from Obama, and where the effects of his trade war have largely remained localized, he'd have very little chance of winning. As it is, most observers put it around 50/50.
As I understand it, his support has collapsed with white, white-collar, college-educated, suburban voters, in the Rust Belt/Midwest. It has also declined with those same sorts of voters in the Sunbelt, and declined with white, blue-collar, non-college-educated, suburban and rural in the Midwest/Rust Belt. The result is that Democrats in 2018 made inroads in both Romney/Clinton and Obama/Trump country.
But, because his floor has been steadily at 41% for the past year, and because the economy is still doing well, it's still only 50/50 to beat him. It's not clear whether Democrats should target the "Blue Wall" states Trump won or narrowly lost (Minnesota and Maine), the Sunbelt states Clinton narrowly lost and/or Democrats won or narrowly lost in 2018, or spread resources out on both, and it's not necessarily clear which candidate is best for each strategy.
The left wing of the party has been arguing that Obama/Trump voters in the Midwest abandoned the party because it moved towards the center on economic issues, even though actual polls of those voters has consistently shown that they were motivated more by cultural issues. So this is what is driving the popularity of Sanders and Warren, and this is what has driven Kamala Harris to run hard to the left.
These candidates are convinced that by winning back Obama/Trump voters and increasingly turnout among young and minority voters (hence abolish ICE and stuff like that), they can easily sweep the Rust Belt, winning back not just the three states Trump narrowly flipped, but Iowa and Ohio as well, and they can do it without giving up Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Nevada, which the Democrats have carried the last three elections but where swing voters are more likely to be the white-collar suburbanites who've been abandoning the Republicans.
The appeal of Klobuchar, Biden (if he runs), and Buttigieg to an extent, is that they can potentially replicate this strategy while running more towards the center, because they speak about the economic issues blue-collar voters actually care about, which does not tend to be free college and abolishing the ICE.
Beto, Castro, Hickenlooper seem to be hoping that as socially liberal, fiscally centrist candidates, they can do the reverse: increase gains in the Sunbelt, especially among white-collar suburbanites, which again, combined with increased youth and minority turnout, can flip sunbelt states like Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Texas, and Georgia. If Abrams runs, she'd probably be in this category too.
Buttigieg, Beto, and Booker are also running as sunny young charismatic unifiers who hope that a message of hope can either recreate the Obama coalition or create a new one, and therefore compete in both the Sun Belt and the Rust Belt, as Obama did. This seems to be Booker's whole strategy, he seems to still think he's as "cool" as he was when he was mayor of Newark. Beto's strength is in his appeal to young voters and Latinos; Buttigieg's strength is in his appeal to young voters and Midwestern voters.
I'm not convinced anyone running hard to the left in the Rust Belt camp has a great chance, and I believe Warren is particularly weak, as I've made clear many timees before. Otherwise, I think the northern and southern approaches both have potential and I favor the candidates I think have the best shot of doing well in both. If I had to pick, I'd probably say the Sun Belt strategy is better. However my top choice has consistently been a Rust Belt candidate (first Klobuchar, now Buttigieg), because I believe that they're simply stronger candidates. Abrams could change that, because I feel that if she runs, she is the strongest Sun Belt candidate possibly barring Beto, but a much more serious person than Beto is.
You also have some candidates trying to carve out a niche for themselves. Tulsi Gabbard is weird because she combines fairly left-wing politics with a more moderate approach, a very pragmatic outlook on foreign policy, and a lot of quirks that are all her own. Then Inslee is the climate change candidate, Yang is the guy who wants to give us all a UBI, Gravel is the guy running to troll the DNC, and Delaney is the "why is he running? No, seriously?" candidate.
As for obscurity, I'd heard of all of the senators, Castro, Gabbard, Gravel, and Hickenlooper before 2016. Beto made a big name for himself in 2018, as did Abrams. Yang, Delaney, Buttigieg, and Inslee, I only know because of their presidential runs. But I'm, of course, relatively well-informed. I've met people in Texas who still don't know who Beto O'Rourke is.