Latest news with #voterEngagement
BBC News
4 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Guernsey general election 'meet the candidates' events scheduled
The States of Guernsey has organised two 'meet the candidate' drop-in events in the lead up to the general the sessions voters will be given the chance to engage with candidates and discuss what matters to them, a States spokesperson first event will take place on 7 and 8 June at Beau Sejour, in the Sir John Loveridge Hall, between 10:00 and 16:00 BST on both second will be at Les Beaucamps High School on 11 June, between 17:30 and 20:30. 'Organic discussions' At Beau Sejour, candidates will be seated with their own space throughout the hall to give them an area for them to talk directly to the Les Beaucamps event has been designed to be informal, which according to the States will allow for "more organic discussions to take place".All candidates have been invited to attend both Falla, registrar general of electors, said: "It has been very positive to see the number of independent events that have been set up by candidates to engage directly with the electorate, however we still wanted to ensure there were some tentpole 'meet the candidate' events organised by the States of Guernsey."She added: "We hope the community find both of these events useful when making their decisions ahead of polling day."The general election has been scheduled to take place on 18 June.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Exactly Why We're Not Winning': Dem Strategist Nails 1 Of Party's Biggest Problems
Democratic strategist Basil Smikle called out his party on Monday for failing to reach voters with a message they can relate to even as President Donald Trump's approval rating plunges. Appearing on MSNBC, Smikle was asked about a New York Times report that party insiders were spending millions on meetings in luxury hotels and programs on how to reach young men, including studying the 'syntax, language and content' of viral media. 'I really have no understanding what that is because honestly, if somebody needed to come talk to me, just come talk to me. Actually go find me and come and talk to me. Don't do it in a hotel. Don't study me like this is some academic exercise,' he said. 'That is exactly why we're not winning: because we Democrats have been accused of looking and sounding too elitist. That's a problem.' MSNBC's Chris Jansing said focus groups show many voters souring on Trump ― but those same voters don't like anything about the Democrats, either. Smikle said the party's current fixation on former President Joe Biden and his reported declining health during his term in office are a perfect case in point of why they aren't connecting with those voters. 'There's been a lot of conversation about what people knew about Joe Biden and when did they know,' he said. 'If you actually go into communities and talk to voters, they're not asking about Joe Biden. They're asking what do we do now. And if Democrats don't have an answer for that question, they're going to continue to lose support.' He urged Democratic insiders to get out of the hotels and into the communities instead. See more of his conversation with Jansing and Meghan Hays, a former special assistant to Biden, below:
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Exactly Why We're Not Winning': Dem Strategist Nails 1 Of Party's Biggest Problems
Democratic strategist Basil Smikle called out his party on Monday for failing to reach voters with a message they can relate to even as President Donald Trump's approval rating plunges. Appearing on MSNBC, Smikle was asked about a New York Times report that party insiders were spending millions on meetings in luxury hotels and programs on how to reach young men, including studying the 'syntax, language and content' of viral media. 'I really have no understanding what that is because honestly, if somebody needed to come talk to me, just come talk to me. Actually go find me and come and talk to me. Don't do it in a hotel. Don't study me like this is some academic exercise,' he said. 'That is exactly why we're not winning: because we Democrats have been accused of looking and sounding too elitist. That's a problem.' MSNBC's Chris Jansing said focus groups show many voters souring on Trump ― but those same voters don't like anything about the Democrats, either. Smikle said the party's current fixation on former President Joe Biden and his reported declining health during his term in office are a perfect case in point of why they aren't connecting with those voters. 'There's been a lot of conversation about what people knew about Joe Biden and when did they know,' he said. 'If you actually go into communities and talk to voters, they're not asking about Joe Biden. They're asking what do we do now. And if Democrats don't have an answer for that question, they're going to continue to lose support.' He urged Democratic insiders to get out of the hotels and into the communities instead. See more of his conversation with Jansing and Meghan Hays, a former special assistant to Biden, below:
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Democrats ditch woke jargon to win back Trump voters
Democrats are ditching woke jargon to win back voters who defected to the right and elected Donald Trump. Prominent party figures warned that said phrases beloved by its activist base like 'Latinx' had isolated ordinary voters and fuelled shattering losses in the last year's elections. They also fear the party's emphasis on issues such as pronouns exhausted the electorate. Kamala Harris, who lost the 2024 presidential election to Mr Trump, was criticised during her brief campaign for nonsensical 'word salad' responses she gave during interviews. 'Some words are just too Ivy League-tested terms,' Ruben Gallego, the Arizona senator, told The Washington Post. 'I'm going to p--- some people off by saying this, but 'social equity' – why do we say that? Why don't we say, 'We want you to have an even chance'?' Mr Gallego, who defeated Kari Lake, a candidate endorsed by Mr Trump, in his senate race, said he had once been instructed to describe his background as 'economically disadvantaged' rather than 'poor'. 'Not every person we meet is going to have the latest update on what the proper terms are,' he continued. 'It doesn't make them sexist or homophobic or racist. Maybe they are a little outdated, but they have a good heart.' He said the term 'Latinx', which avoids gendering Latinos or Latinas, is 'stupid' and claimed that few Hispanics actually use it. Joe Biden, the former US president, has previously claimed it was 'hard to get Latinx vaccinated' because they were scared of being deported. Policy papers produced by Mr Biden's administration also refer to 'justice-involved populations' rather than prisoners, and 'previously-incarcerated individuals' instead of ex-convicts. Andy Beshear, the Kentucky governor who won two terms in the red-leaning state, said Democrats had fallen into using phrases like 'substance abuse disorder' instead of addiction. 'I believe that over time, and probably for well-meaning reasons, Democrats have begun to speak like professors and started using advocacy-speak that was meant to reduce stigma, but also removed the meaning and emotion behind words,' he said. 'It makes Democrats or candidates using this speech sound like they're not normal… It sounds simple, but what the Democratic Party needs to do is be normal and sound normal.' 'Democrats trip over themselves in an attempt to say exactly the right thing,' said Allison Prasch, an associate professor of rhetoric, politics and culture at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. 'Republicans maybe aren't so concerned about saying exactly the right thing, so it may appear more authentic to some voters.' Elissa Slotkin, the Michigan senator, said she had once won over a group of sceptical Teamster union members by calling them 'motherf---ers'. 'They love it…. That is a different way to enter the room,' she said. She has previously criticised progressive politicians, like Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, for railing against the 'oligarchy', claiming the term means little to ordinary voters. In March, Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman urged his party to talk 'like regular people', adding: 'Most people are not sure what an oligarch is.' During last year's election campaign, the Trump campaign and Republicans sought to paint Democrats as out-of-touch and beholden to a radical activist wing. Ms Harris was frequently mocked for her 'word salad' responses to interview questions. One New York Times commentator complained she relied heavily on 'jargon' and 'rehearsed turns of phrase' while she 'winds her way slowly toward an answer'. In a town hall event a fortnight before election day, Ms Harris appeared to address the issue, conceding she struggled to answer questions, was 'kind of a nerd', and was not always 'quick on her feet'. Several commentators said her lack of clarity meant she ended up on the wrong side of the culture war. One of Mr Trump's most effective attack adverts ended with the tagline: 'Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you.' In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Monday, Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor who is considered a potential contender for the Democratic nomination, urged his party to focus on issues like education over gender identity. 'I'm empathetic and sympathetic to a child trying to figure out their pronoun, but it doesn't trump the fact that the rest of the class doesn't know what a pronoun is,' he said.
Fox News
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Democratic Party scrambles to fix image as members acknowledge party 'lost credibility'
The Democratic Party is continuing to weigh their path forward as some members of the party acknowledge a disconnect on cultural issues and other key voting demographics, The New York Times reported Sunday. "Over a long period of time, our party overdrew our trust account with the American people," Rob Flaherty, a former campaign manager for Kamala Harris, told the NYT. The Times reported that Democrats are still figuring out how to move forward as the party remains unpopular among voters. According to an NBC News poll from March, just 27% of registered voters have a positive view of the Democratic Party, which is the lowest positive rating since 1990. "We are losing support in vast swaths of the country, in rural America, in the Midwest, the places where I'm from," Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., told the outlet. "People that I grew up with who now support Donald Trump, who used to be Democrats. There's no reason why we shouldn't have the support of these folks, other than we have pushed, in so many ways, these people away from our party." Former DNC chair Jaime Harrison said the Democratic Party needed to figure out how to compete in states "where they're not." The New York Times reported that the party is engaging in one $20 million effort to win back young male voters online. The effort, which is named, "Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan," according to the outlet, will "study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces." "Above all, we must shift from a moralizing tone," the plan says, according to the NYT. Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster, warned that the Democratic Party's brand is off-putting to many Americans and cautioned against taking the wrong message from any potential success in the 2026 midterms. "The 2022 midterms masked the Biden problem," McCray said, referring to former President Joe Biden's age. "A good 2026 midterm — we should not let that mask a deeper problem." He added that the party "lost credibility by being seen as alien on cultural issues." Democrats were told to "embrace patriotism" and "get out of elite circles" earlier this year during a retreat focused on how to regain the working-class vote. Documents first obtained by Politico detailed a "Comeback Retreat" held by the center-left political group Third Way last month that sought "to deliberate on why Democrats are struggling with working-class voters around cultural issues, the nature of the economic trust gap with this critical group and ideas for how to address both problems." The documents, obtained by Fox News Digital, summarized key takeaways from the retreat on why Democrats have a "cultural disconnect" with the working class and why Democrats are "not trusted" when it comes to the economy. Most takeaways focused on Democrats' "faculty lounge" problem of being seen as too judgmental and beholden to their far-left members. "Democrats are often viewed as judgmental, out-of-touch, and dismissive of those without elite education or progressive views," the documents read. "This makes the party seem disconnected from everyday people."
