White working class vote in 1988

[maclennanc2]

Why did Dukakis do so well among the white working class, especially compared to his nationwide performance? He basically won the white working class outside the Deep South, and even in Oklahoma and East Texas (including Orange County - home to Vidor, the most racist town in America, looks like that Willy Horton stuff didn't persuade them to vote Republican)

Dukakis seemed Iike a horrible fit for working class voters, a self described "neoliberal" and "technocrat" from Massachusetts with a funny sounding foreign name who had a poor relation with labor and was seen as socially liberal on issues like the death penalty and flag burning. Yet he preformed way better in these areas than Mondale, who was the last real New Dealer nominee.

[darklordoftech]

Yet he preformed way better in these areas than Mondale, who was the last real New Dealer nominee.

Party fatigue and Bush was a fundamentally weaker candidate than Reagan.

[maclennanc2]

Yet he preformed way better in these areas than Mondale, who was the last real New Dealer nominee.

Party fatigue and Bush was a fundamentally weaker candidate than Reagan.

Why would that be stronger in working class areas than elsewhere? Look at Maryland, it barely moved it all from 1984-1988.

[King of Kensington]

There was still a residual New Deal Democrat vote then.

[TheTide]

He didn't exactly come from a well-off background and that can often matter in elections, even if only in a subconscious way.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

I think that at that point racial backlash was much stronger among crime obsessed suburbanites then WWC voters who still saw Democrats as the reliable bread and butter party. Dukakis also ran a populist campaign, look at Anne Richards keynote speech on his behalf at the 88 convention.

[darklordoftech]

Yet he preformed way better in these areas than Mondale, who was the last real New Dealer nominee.

Party fatigue and Bush was a fundamentally weaker candidate than Reagan.

Why would that be stronger in working class areas than elsewhere? Look at Maryland, it barely moved it all from 1984-1988.

Because working class areas were more Democratic-leaning to begin with. Only Reagan could overcome that lean.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I question the premise that Dukakis did particularly well with the "white working class", he did about as well as a Democrat in that era would have done in industrial areas. The fact that he outperformed Mondale has less to do with Dukakis, and more to do with Bush, who wasn't nearly as popular as Reagan was in '84.

Where Dukakis really overperformed is the upper midwest and the Dakotas. That is generally understood to be an anti-incumbent backlash from farmers struggling with the farm crisis of the late '80s. Coal country WWC were still straight-ticket Democrats in those days, and the Republican swing of poor white southerners hadn't entirely happened in all southern states. Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and the Appalachian states still had a sizeable base of working-class whites who voted Democrat. Lloyd Bentsen probably helped on this front too.

[Matty]

I reject the premise that dukakis did well with WWC voters