Swing voters want more focus on the economy, less on identity issues

NZ Herald

4 days ago

Five years ago, Raymond Teachey voted, as usual, for the Democratic presidential nominee.
But by last fall, Teachey, an aircraft mechanic from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, was rethinking his political allegiances. To him, the Democratic Party seemed increasingly focused on issues of identity at the expense of more tangible day-to-day concerns, such as public safety or the economy.
'Some of them turned their back on their base,' Teachey, 54, said.
Raymond Teachey, an aircraft mechanic who said that he skipped the 2024 presidential election after supporting Joe Biden in 2020, at a park in Bristol, Pennsylvania. Photo / Hannah Yoon, The New York Times
Working-class voters like Teachey, who supported Biden in 2020 but either backed Trump last year or, as Teachey did, skipped the 2024 presidential election, help explain why Democrats lost pivotal swing counties like Bucks and vividly illustrate how the traditional Democratic coalition has eroded in the Trump era.
Now, Democrats hope to bring these voters back into the fold for the midterm elections in 2026, betting on a backlash to Trump and his party's far-reaching moves to slash the social safety net.
But in interviews with nearly 30 predominantly working-class voters who supported Biden in 2020 before defecting or struggling deeply with their choices last year, many had a stinging message for the Democratic Party.
Just because we have misgivings about Trump, they say, it doesn't mean we like you.
'I think I'm done with the Democrats,' said Desmond Smith, 24, a deli worker from Smithdale, Mississippi, and a black man who said he backed Biden in 2020 at the height of the racial justice protests.
Last year, disillusioned by what he saw as the party's over-emphasis on identity politics and concerned about illegal immigration, he voted for Trump.
Asked how Democrats could win him back, he said: 'Fight for Americans instead of fighting for everybody else'.
An in-depth post-election study from the Pew Research Centre suggests that about 5% of Biden's voters in 2020 switched to Trump in 2024, while roughly 15% of those voters stayed home last year.
Trump retained more of his 2020 voters than Democrats did, a crucial factor in winning the election.
Polling on the current attitudes of those Biden defectors is limited, but it is clear the Democratic brand, broadly, continues to struggle.
A Wall Street Journal poll released in late July found that the party's image was at its lowest point in more than three decades, with just 33% of voters saying they held a favourable view of Democrats.
'They're doing nothing to move their own numbers because they don't have an economic message,' said John Anzalone, a veteran Democratic pollster who worked on that survey.
'They think that this is about Trump's numbers getting worse,' he added. 'They need to worry about their numbers.'
Certainly, anger with Trump, an energised Democratic base and the headwinds a president's party typically confronts in Midterm elections could help propel Democrats to victory next year.
Democrats have had some recruitment success (and luck), and they see growing openings to argue that Trump's domestic agenda helps the wealthy at the expense of the working class, a message they are already beginning to push in advertising.
There is no top-of-the-ticket national Democrat to defend or avoid, while Republicans have virtually no room to distance themselves from Trump's least popular ideas.
But interviews with the voters whom Democrats are most desperate to reclaim also suggest that the party's challenges could extend well beyond next year's races.
Here are five takeaways from those conversations.
Biden's disastrous re-election bid fuelled a trust issue. It hasn't gone away.
Bielski, 35, an executive chef at a private club, said he had typically voted for Democrats until last year's presidential election, when he backed Trump.
Democratic leaders had insisted that the plainly frail Biden was vigorous enough to run, and they had encouraged sceptical voters to fall in line. Instantly after he dropped out, they urged Democrats to unite behind the candidacy of Kamala Harris, who was then the vice-president.
That did not sit right with Bielski, who said he was already distrustful of Democrats who had pushed pandemic-era lockdowns. Harris, he said, 'wasn't someone that I got to vote for in a primary'.
'It almost seemed wrong,' continued Bielski, who lives in Phoenix. 'It was kind of like, okay, the same people that were just running the country are now telling us that this is the person that we should vote for.'
After Harris became the Democratic nominee, some voters interpreted her meandering answers in televised interviews as an unwillingness to be straight with them.
By contrast, while Trump gave outlandish and rambling public remarks riddled with conspiracy theories and lies, some said they had got the general sense that he wanted to tackle the cost of living and curb illegal immigration.
'It was difficult to understand what her point of view was,' said Bruce Gamble, 67, a retired substation maintainer for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.
Gamble said he voted for Biden in 2020 and Trump last year.
Trump 'was able to communicate better to me', he added, while Harris 'felt like she was talking over my head, so I didn't quite trust her'.
Worried about paying the bills, they saw Democrats as too focused on cultural issues.
Many in this multiracial group of voters said they thought Democrats had gone too far in promoting transgender rights or in emphasising matters of racial identity.
But often, they were more bothered by their perception that those discussions had come at the expense of addressing economic anxieties.
'It seemed like they were more concerned with DEI and LGBTQ issues and really just things that didn't pertain to me or concern me at all,' said Kendall Wood, 32, a truck driver from Henrico County, Virginia.
He said he voted for Trump last year after backing Biden in 2020. 'They weren't concerned with, really, kitchen-table issues.'
A poll from the New York Times and Ipsos conducted this year found that many Americans did not believe that the Democratic Party was focused on the economic issues that mattered most to them.
'Maybe talk about real-world problems,' said Maya Garcia, 23, a restaurant server from the San Fernando Valley in California. She said she voted for Biden in 2020 and did not vote for president last year. Democrats talk 'a lot about us emotionally, but what are we going to do financially?'
She added, 'I understand that you want, you know, equal rights and things like that. But I feel like we need to talk more about the economics.'
But in a warning sign for Republicans, a recent CNN poll found that a growing share of Americans — 63% — felt as if Trump had not paid enough attention to the country's most important problems.
Sarah Smarty, a home health aide and an author who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 but flipped to President Donald Trump last year, drives through Mifflin County, near McClure, Pennsylvania. Photo / Hannah Yoon, The New York Times
'America First' gained new resonance amid wars abroad.
As wars raged in the Middle East and Ukraine, some working-class voters thought the Biden Administration cared more about events abroad than about the problems in their communities.
'They were funding in other countries, while we do not have the money to fund ourselves,' said Smarty, 33, a home health aide and an author.
She said she voted for Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024, adding that she viewed Trump as a man of action.
'I would really like to see more jobs,' she said. 'I would like to see them take good care of people who are homeless in our area.'
Bielski said that against the backdrop of overseas turmoil, Trump's 'America First' message resonated.
But these days, he does not think Trump is living up to that mantra.
'We're getting into more stuff abroad and not really focusing on economics here,' he said.
'It doesn't seem like he's holding true to anything that he's promised.'
Flores, 22, a technician at a car dealership, said the foreign policy emphasis — and a sense that life was tough regardless of the party in power — helped explain why he skipped last year's election as well as the 2020 presidential race.
'No matter how many times have we gone red, or even blue, the blue-collar workers' have seen little progress, Flores said.
Marlon Flores, a technician at a car dealership who said that regardless of the party in power, blue-collar workers have seen little progress, at his apartment complex in Houston. Photo / Desiree Rios, The New York Times
They worry about illegal immigration. But some think Trump's crackdowns are going too far.
These voters often said they agreed with Trump on the need to stem the flow of illegal immigration and strengthen border security.
But some worried about the Administration's crackdown, which has resulted in sweeping raids, children being separated from their parents, the deportation of American citizens and a growing sense of fear in immigrant communities.
Several people interviewed said they knew people who had been personally affected.
Smarty, for instance, said her friend's husband, who had lived in the US for 25 years, had suddenly been deported to Mexico.
Her friend is 'going through some health problems, and they have kids, and that's really hard on their family', Smarty said. 'I don't really feel that's exactly right.'
They're not done with every Democrat. But they're tired of the old guard.
Many of the voters interviewed said they remained open to supporting Democrats — or at least the younger ones.
'Stop being friggin' old,' said Cinnamon Boffa, 57, from Langhorne, Pennsylvania.
As she recalled, she supported Biden in 2020 but voted only down-ballot last year, lamenting that 'our choices suck'.
Teachey thought there was still room for seasoned politicians, but in many cases, it was time to get 'the boomers out of there'.
He is increasingly inclined to support Democrats next year to check unfettered Republican power.
'They're totally far-right,' he said of the GOP. 'Honestly, I don't identify with any party.'
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Katie Glueck
Photographs by: Adriana Zehbrauskas, Hannah Yoon, Desiree Rios
©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES