White working class Democrats....

[All Along The Watchtower]

Why are they leaving the Democratic Party so much? This seems like it has been a long-term trend since the 60s.

Of course, "white working class Democrats" is (or was )  a pretty huge group of people, with many different sub-groups and such in that broad brush. But, as a general trend, they have become increasingly Republican (or at least, not reliable Democratic voters-or even reliable voters, in many cases )

Does this trend say more about white working class voters, or the direction the Democratic Party has taken (for better or worse) in recent years? Or maybe, it says more about the state of American politics in this age, no?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Much of the Democratic Party's focus in recent years has been directed at a different crowd. The "New Democrat" style of party, hard on social liberalism and mildly supportive on free trade, isn't really a winner to the working class. Make a quick comparison of the Democrats today to the Democrats 30 years ago. 30 years ago many working class whites voted for the Democrats because they thought the Republicans would elminate protectionist trade policies and destroy the union. But the factories have kept on closing. The industry keeps moving away. The Democrats' ability to protect the worker looks weaker than ever. Half the party is more concerned about fighting for gay marriage than for the working man. Even if they gave him ObamaCare he probably doesn't trust them on that anyway.

And so often you get quotes from the Democrats like this that reek of coastal elitism:

Awesome. Take that, bigots.

The country is a different place and the Democratic Party looks different than it did 20 years ago. While you can still find traces of the old-school Dems in the south and rust belt, the national party has moved on to focus on other issues leaving behind the old union mentality that kept working class whites in a solid  Democratic block.

I agree with much of this.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I think that Democrats should be concerned about the working-class white vote and the trend towards the Republicans because in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Michigan, etc, they make up a crucial part of the electorate.

States like California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, New York, all of New England (for the most part)...those states are all increasing their share of Democratic votes in the big urban metro areas that dominate most of those states. However, it really doesn't matter how much Democratic turnout increases in places like those which are already strongly Dem anyway. What matters in the short/medium-term are the swing states, many of which are seeing  declining Democratic registration (as well as Republican, to be fair, but with a Democrat as the President a lot of disgruntled  white working class voters, whether they be Democratic, Republican, or Independent, will be more likely to vote Republican in the coming elections).

[All Along The Watchtower]

http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/kansas.pdf

Interesting analysis there. Basically, the author says that "working class white backlash" towards Democrats is not happening nearly as much as authors like Thomas Frank claim..outside the South, that is.

The real backlash has been among middle and upper-income whites. John Kerry received 50% of the vote from whites in the bottom third of the income distribution and 39% of those in the top third-a difference of 11%. Averaging over eight presidential elections from 1976-2004, 51% of lower-third income whites voted for Democrats, compared to 44% of whites in the middle third and 37% of whites in the upper third.

Of course, the 2008 presidential election and 2010 mid-term congressional election may be the start of a break in this pattern...