Latest news with #Landrieu
Vox
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Vox
The daunting task facing Democrats trying to win back the working class
is a senior politics reporter at Vox, where he covers the Democratic Party. He joined Vox in 2022 after reporting on national and international politics for the Atlantic's politics, global, and ideas teams, including the role of Latino voters in the 2020 election. Demonstrators hold signs while walking the picket line before Sen. Elizabeth Warren arrives at the United Auto Workers strike outside the General Motors Co. Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant in Detroit, Michigan, on September 22, 2019. Anthony Lanzilote/Bloomberg via Getty Images It's perhaps the most urgent reason Democrats lost in November: The party has solidly lost the support of working-class voters across the country and doesn't have a solid sense of how to win them back. Now, a group of Democratic researchers, strategists, and operatives are launching a renewed effort to figure out — and to communicate to the rest of their party — what it is that these voters want, where they think the party went wrong, and how to best respond to their concerns before the 2026 election cycle. Led by Mitch Landrieu, former Democratic lieutenant governor of Louisiana and former mayor of New Orleans, the Working Class Project plans to offer guidance over the next few months on how to build 'a more sustainable majority' in future elections. Their challenge is daunting. In November 2024, Trump not only rallied the white working-class base of voters that first got him elected in 2016. He also cut into Democrats' working-class support among voters of color: Nearly half of Latino voters and a historic share of Black voters backed Trump (anywhere from a tenth to nearly one in five). Exit polls from November also show that Trump won over new support from both lower-income and middle-income voters — those who make less than $100,000 per year, and particularly those who make less than $50,000 per year. Last year marked the first time in nearly 60 years that the lowest-earning Americans voted for the Republican presidential candidate over the Democratic one. Some of this can be explained away by pointing to the confluence of factors that made last year's election unique: the historic age and unpopularity of the incumbent president, the late-in-the-game candidate switch-up, high inflation, post-pandemic malaise, and Trump's specific appeal. But Landrieu and the Working Class Project want Democrats to resist these excuses — and to accept that their decline with these voters predates Trump. 'Since President Obama was first elected in 2008, Democrats have seen over 25% in net loss of support among working class voters,' Landrieu explains in the project's launch announcement. 'In other words, for two decades, Democrats have been on a downward slide among the very voters whose interests we champion and who benefit most from our policies.' What this effort looks like Housed within the liberal opposition research firm and Super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, the Working Class Project is primarily focused on research, polling, and focus group works. They're focused on reaching and listening to voters in 21 states: the traditional seven battleground states, seven safely Democratic states with large shares of white and nonwhite working-class voters (which drifted right last year), and seven solidly Republican states. Some of these focus groups have already been conducted — the group began this work in February after Trump's inauguration — and they plan on interviewing labor, faith, and local leaders as well. The group is also planning a longer-term study with an in-depth focus on a handful of dynamics unique to the 2024 election that most of the party still seems adrift on. That includes following and finding out the motivations of young white, Black, Latino, and AAPI men who Trump won over, and what their media consumption habits look like. They also say that they'll conduct longitudinal research on working-class people in these states to track their behavior over the course of Trump's second term to track their reactions to things like tariffs, taxes, and immigration. 'With this deep listening to working class voters across 21 states, we'll identify messages, messengers and new mediums to rebuild the Democratic brand and write a blueprint for victory that we'll deploy using every tool in our toolbox,' the group said. Their effort, of course, isn't the only one on the left trying to discern and solve the party's branding, messaging, and policy problems. But their framing is a bit different. Democrats face a numbers problem in 2028 and beyond The group's memo says they chose those 21 states because they are the fastest-growing and stand to gain the most from congressional reapportionment in 2030. They include seven 'growth' states where Democrats are no longer competitive at the statewide level: Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas. And it's those states where Democrats will need to seriously compete if they hope to win the presidency or hold the Senate after 2030. It's also in those states where Trump's 2024 gains — if they hold — would make it impossible for Democrats to be competitive without winning back more working-class voters. To be sure, Trump himself is already doing some of this work for his opposition. His approval ratings have swung sharply away from him in at least nine of those 21 states, according to polling estimates conducted by data journalists at The Economist. And his chaotic handling of tariffs, inflation, and the economy in general is likely contributing to this discontent among his 2024 coalition. But Democrats will have to do more to take advantage of this skepticism with Trump. The Brennan Center for Justice's reapportionment projections for 2030 suggest that with population losses in solidly Democratic and swing states, a future Democratic presidential candidate will face difficult odds for an Electoral College win after those votes are reallocated to match census estimates. After 2030, the Center estimates, 'even if a Democrat in 2032 were to carry the Blue Wall states and both Arizona and Nevada, the result would be only a narrow 276–262 win' making Democratic gains with men, working-class voters, and voters in the South and the Heartland an existential challenge.
The Guardian
12-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
New Orleans Mardi Gras parades to be shielded by barriers, says manufacturer
New Orleans plans to protect large sections of its Mardi Gras parade routes with mobile 700lb steel barriers that are designed to prevent intentional vehicle rammings – but were not deployed on the night that the city endured the deadly Bourbon Street truck attack at the beginning of the year, according to the blockades' manufacturer. The Meridian Rapid Defense Group announced that the city would expand its renewed use of the company's Archer 1200 barriers in a recent statement issued after the firm's chief executive officer indicated time was running out to be able to get the blockades where they needed to be for Carnival celebrations culminating in Mardi Gras on 4 March. The former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu's administration had acquired an initial inventory of Archer barriers – certified by the US's homeland security department under a congressional act incentivizing anti-terrorism technology – in 2017 in response to deadly car rammings aimed at crowds in Nice, Berlin, London, New York and Barcelona. But as a crowd of revelers descended on New Orleans's globally renowned Bourbon Street to ring in 2025 on the morning of 1 January, the administration of Landrieu's successor – Mayor LaToya Cantrell – had chosen to leave its Archer barriers in storage. They were one of three types of barriers meant to prevent motorists from purposely targeting crowds that the city had acquired but then did not use on the day of the attack on Bourbon Street, which itself unfolded less than two weeks after a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, was fatally targeted in similar fashion. The Bourbon Street attack killed 14 people and injured nearly 60 others before police officers were able to fatally shoot the US army veteran who was inspired by the Islamic State (IS). Along with multiple investigations focusing on the assailant, New Orleans officials are grappling with civil litigation from wounded victims and loved ones of those slain who allege that the city failed to adequately protect crowds before the attack. Cantrell's administration subsequently hired the former New York and Los Angeles police chief William Bratton to review as well as fortify the city's security plans against future threats. Perhaps the first major test was the NFL Super Bowl that New Orleans hosted on Sunday, which did not see any of the 'copycat or retaliatory attacks' that authorities warned the public about after the killings on Bourbon Street. Leading up to and throughout the Super Bowl, Meridian's Archer barriers were a ubiquitous sight along with personnel from numerous local, state and federal law enforcement agencies that were part of the top-level special event assessment rating – or 'Sear' classification – given to the big game. Barriers that Meridian provided to the city to supplement its initial stash were seen in place along Bourbon Street and throughout the surrounding French Quarter – including at the city's St Louis cathedral, where light shows were projected on the building's exterior. They were also seen erected outside a theater which hosted the NFL Honors celebration night recognizing the league's best players and performances of the preceding season. New Orleans is bracing for even larger gatherings as the peak of the Mardi Gras season – arguably known best for numerous street parades throughout the city – kicks off on 21 February. To that end, Meridian officials said its teams would be shielding substantial portions of the city's parade routes with its barriers. The route used by many of the parades, generally along Saint Charles Avenue, is about 4 miles long. Meridian's announcement on 6 February did not elaborate on many specifics. But, in an interview on New Orleans's WWL Radio in January, Meridian's CEO, Peter Whitford, said it would take the city renting an additional 900 barriers to protect the parade route. He said it would not be the first time the company has been counted on to protect such festivities. For the annual Rose Parade in its home city of Pasadena, California, Meridian lines up about 600 Archer barriers, which can be wheeled in and out of place in minutes. Whitford told WWL Radio it takes a team of 20 people about 31 minutes to secure that route. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion And in fact, at the Rose Parade on New Year's Day 2024, a woman who allegedly had a history of mental illness tried to ram her car past an Archer barricade, which incapacitated her vehicle and saved spectators from being injured or worse. Whitford told WWL Radio that he realized the barriers would need to be deployed and then removed constantly at the height of the Mardi Gras season because streets are only closed temporarily for the parades. But he said the Formula One racing series has availed itself of Meridian's Archer barriers to protect its grand prix in Las Vegas, which generally takes place along the drag colloquially known as the Strip. Las Vegas does not shut down its Strip for the duration of the race weekend, meaning Meridian essentially has to close and reopen the street four times nightly while F1 is in town. 'We would do exactly the same for Mardi Gras,' Whitford said to the station. During that conversation, Whitford said New Orleans' government had not responded to a proposal to fortify its parade route with Meridian's Archer barriers, and 'we're very close to not having enough time' to implement it even if the city wanted to do so. But days later, Meridian announced New Orleans had accepted the proposal, prompting Whitford to say in an accompanying statement: 'The city really understands the idea of a so-called gold standard and that means teaming with a company such as Meridian.' The city confirmed talks with the company but declined to discuss any resulting arrangements or why it had not put out the barriers on 1 January. A statement from Meridian and attributed to the New Orleans police superintendent, Anne Kirkpatrick, said the federal government's decision to give its highest Sear level to Mardi Gras positioned the city to be 'able to provide this type of safety'.
