As Kamala Harris prepares to lead the Democrats into the 2024 presidential election, her team has begun debating what a path to victory might look like. Which voters should she work on engaging the most? And in which states should she and her allies spend the bulk of their newly amassed war chest?
Early indications are that they may focus on Sun Belt states like Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada, which are younger, more racially diverse, and well educated — at the expense of some of the party’s tried-and-true “Blue Wall” states like Michigan and Wisconsin, which are slightly older, whiter, and more working-class. According to Politico, “Harris’s emerging brain trust…[believes her] relative strength with young, Black and Brown voters will put more states in play than a weakened Biden could credibly contest. The Midwest is not where the opportunity is for her. The opportunity… is going to be Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania.”
This thinking seems to stem from frustrations among many progressives that Democrats have spent too much time in recent years placating the median voter, whom Matthew Yglesias has succinctly described as a “a 50-something white person who didn’t go to college and lives in the suburbs of an unfashionable city” and who likely holds culturally moderate or conservative views.
Progressives have lamented the need to do this as the country has grown more diverse and would much prefer to focus on the more exciting task of energising a multiracial coalition of young people whom they believe share their progressive views. One Harris ally told the Atlantic she hoped to see the Vice President challenge the idea “that politicians have to appease older white voters in order to be successful.”
A new CNN poll indicated that Harris may indeed do better with non-white voters than Biden, though it’s too early to know whether her improvements are a temporary boost or signs of a real shift. But even if they stick, it’s likely not enough for Harris to win. The same poll found Trump ahead by three points overall (though within the margin of error), which represents a significant shift from 2020 and still leaves her vulnerable in the Electoral College.
Ultimately, while the Sun Belt may look like an attractive target, pivoting from Democrats’ longstanding formula for success — which starts by going through the Blue Wall — is incredibly misguided. First, it fundamentally misunderstands the American electorate. The Democrats’ base voters are inefficiently distributed in a handful of major metro areas, often in deep-blue states. This makes it extremely difficult to build a coalition that can win a general election with just those voters. And if, as some of Harris’s allies claim, they want to rebuild Barack Obama’s highly successful coalition, then she by definition must cater to white working-class voters in Midwestern states, who represent a majority of the electorate in places like Michigan and Wisconsin.
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