Tommy Washbush illustration / Lisa Ferdinando photo
Six states over a backdrop of Joe Biden.
I have one goal for the election that will take place exactly a year from now: Make sure Donald Trump does not return to the White House.
Up until this point I had thought that Joe Biden was the best bet to keep Trump in Mar-a-Lago, or preferably in a minimum security prison someplace. After all, Biden beat Trump last time and, despite his low approval ratings, Democrats did surprisingly well in last year’s midterms, which are usually a referendum on the incumbent president.
But the New York Times/Siena poll that came out last week is the latest piece of evidence that it’s time for Democrats to start shopping around for an alternative. The poll looked at six key states (I refuse to use the term “battleground”) and Trump was ahead in all but one. Trump leads by 10 points in Nevada, six in Georgia, five in Arizona, five in Michigan and four in Pennsylvania.
Only here in Wisconsin did Biden have a lead, and that was all of two points.
A surprising thing about that is that Wisconsin was the least diverse state among the six. As the Times put it in their story, “In a remarkable sign of a gradual racial realignment between the two parties, the more diverse the swing state, the farther Mr. Biden was behind, and he led only in the whitest of the six (Wisconsin).”
That last point suggests that the problem might not just be with Biden, but with the Democratic brand altogether. Democrats have been losing support among blue collar voters regardless of race, which has to be perplexing to Democratic elites, who are obsessed with identity politics. A party well-versed in intersectionality is losing market share among the intersectionalized.
My party has rapidly become the party of college educated voters living in big cities and college towns. That explains one of the Democrats’ biggest signature issues — paying off college debt, a massive transfer of wealth from the less well-off to the much better off. The average college graduate earns about $1.4 million more over a career than someone without a degree.
The trouble is that only three in 10 Americans have a four-year degree and, while they are more dedicated voters, that’s not enough to make up for only being 30% of the voting age population.
In fact, Democrats have been doing some head-scratching of late over why they find themselves in such a competitive environment when the Republicans are all but certain to nominate a man who will probably spend as much time defending himself in courtrooms as he will on the campaign trail, a party that just spent almost a month fighting among itself and displaying its lack of interest in or ability to govern.
My own view on that is that my party has a disconnect with the values of the majority of Americans. We’re viewed as the party of giving stuff away, of spending your hard-earned money, a party of scolding know-it-alls who want to tell you what to drive, what to eat, even the kind of oven you should own (electric, not gas). We don’t talk about hard work or what you can earn. We talk about what you’re owed just for breathing.
The one issue that could save us is abortion. In fact, it’s the only issue on which Biden has a big lead — nine points — over Trump in these six states. But ironically, it’s an issue that could all but go away here in Wisconsin, the one state in which Biden is ahead. That’s because the new liberal majority on the state Supreme Court will almost surely strike down our restrictive 1849 abortion law before next fall. It’s the right thing to do on many levels, but it will take the wind out of that political sail.
But back to Biden. We can’t fix the long-term problems with the Democratic Party in a year, if ever. But we can change candidates the way we’d put on a different shirt.
I like Joe Biden. I think he’s done a good job, but he seems immune to getting credit for anything. Here’s a guy who has presided over an economy that seems to have pulled off the trick of reducing inflation without sparking a recession, an economy with little unemployment and rising wages that, at least in some months, outstrip price increases.
The big wage increases won by the UAW are likely to contribute to progress for blue collar workers across the board. Biden is the first American president to walk a picket line. And yet, no matter what he does, Biden’s approval ratings hover around 40%. In fact, in this latest poll Trump is seen as better on the economy by a margin of 59% to 37%.
Two things seem certain about Joe Biden: He’s not going to get any younger and he’s not going to get any more popular. Biden turns 81 soon and 77% of voters in the poll said he was too old for his job, including 54% of Democrats.
So, if I’m shopping for somebody else, what am I looking for? Here are a few ideas.
Somebody younger. Okay, low bar, but it does rule out Nancy Pelosi, who isn’t talked about as a candidate anyway, but who I actually think would make a good president. Still, we need to get beyond the age issue.
Somebody who isn’t from the party’s hard-left wing. So long, Elizabeth Warren.
Somebody who is from the center of the country. Sorry, Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom.
Somebody who already wins in a red or purple state. That favors pols like Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. It would also rule in our Sen. Tammy Baldwin, but she’s up for reelection next year herself and she’s shown little interest in being president.
What the party definitely has to do is resist its tendency to emphasize identity over electability (see Barnes, Mandela). I couldn’t care less what the race and gender of the candidate is. I care if he or she can beat Trump. That’s it.
And, increasingly, I’m coming to the reluctant conclusion that that candidate is not Joe Biden. It’s time for Democrats to get serious about looking elsewhere.
Dave Cieslewicz is a Madison- and Upper Peninsula-based writer who served as mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. You can read more of his work at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos.
