Two very credible reports on the 2016 election have just come out. They both conclude that Clinton’s defeat was not due to a failure to motivate her base. Low turnout was not the problem. Instead, the margin of defeat can be found in the number of white working class Obama voters who turned to Trump.
First, the New York Times analysis concluded:
If turnout played only a modest role in Mr. Trump’s victory, then the big driver of his gains was persuasion: He flipped millions of white working-class Obama supporters to his side.
….
Throughout the campaign, polls of registered voters — which are not subject to changes in turnout — showed Mrs. Clinton faring much worse than Mr. Obama among white working-class voters.
The postelection survey data tells a similar story: Mrs. Clinton won Mr. Obama’s white-working class supporters by a margin of only 78 percent to 18 percent against Mr. Trump, according to the Cooperative Congressional Election Study.
In the Midwestern battleground states and Pennsylvania, Mrs. Clinton had an advantage of 76 percent to 20 percent among white working-class Obama voters.
The Global Strategy Group Report found the same data. It characterized the import of this date, thusly:
The findings are significant for a Democratic Party, at a historic low point, that’s trying to figure out how it can win back power. Much of the debate over how to move forward has centered on whether the party should try to win back working-class white voters – who make up the bulk of Obama-Trump voters – or focus instead on mobilizing its base.
Turning out the base, the data suggests, is simply not good enough.
So what’s this mean about strategy and tactics going forward?
Reasonable minds can disagree, but its time to start facing the facts and planning accordingly.