The Rise of Biden Republicans - Macomb County Michigan & Beyond

[Luke]

Fascinating deep dive story for weekend reading. Zack talks with Stan Greenberg, who coined the phrase "Reagan Democrats".

“They are going to have to lose a few elections before there can be a new dynamic within the Republican Party — just as the Democrats lost a lot of national elections before Bill Clinton was able to change the party.”

The Rise of the Biden Republicans
The pollster who identified “Reagan Democrats” in the 1980s sees the emergence of a mirror image voting bloc. And it spells trouble for a GOP dominated by Trump.
By ZACK STANTON 03/04/2021 07:55 PM EST
Zack Stanton is digital editor of Politico Magazine and a native of Macomb County. You can find him on Twitter at @zackstanton.
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For four decades now, that historic upheaval and the quest for the support of Reagan Democrats has defined American politics, from the rise of Bill Clinton’s “New Democrats”—which Greenberg, as Clinton’s pollster, had a central role in crafting—to George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” to Barack Obama’s poll-tested evisceration of Mitt Romney’s venture capital experience, to Donald Trump’s white-grievance mongering and tirades against NAFTA. After Obama won Macomb in 2008 and 2012, Trump captured it in 2016 and 2020.

Then something important happened: In leaning too hard into white identity politics—and perhaps being too focused on what he thought Reagan Democrats wanted—Trump accelerated the rise of a new voting bloc that is, in many ways, the mirror image of the Reagan Democrats.

Call them the Biden Republicans.

Like the Reagan Democrats, they’re heavily white and live in suburbs. But where the Reagan Dems are blue-collar and culturally conservative, Greenberg sees the Biden Republicans as more affluent, highly educated and supportive of diversity. Historically, they identified with the Republican Party as their political home. But the leaders who were supposed to fight for them seem to care more about white grievance and keeping out immigrants; seem to care more about social issues and “owning the libs” than about child-care payments and college tuition. They don’t consider themselves Democrats—at least not yet—but they are voting for them, delivering them majorities in the House and Senate, and making Joe Biden just the fourth candidate in the past century to defeat an incumbent president.

Now, with the support of Biden Republicans shored up—at least for the time being—Joe Biden is embarking on an audacious gambit that’s gone largely unnoticed, but, if successful, could kneecap national Republicans for a decade: Recapturing the support of the Reagan Democrats.

“Biden is very self-consciously campaigning for Macomb County-type, white working-class voters [for whom] race is not the only thing driving their vote, but who went to Trump [in 2016] because of globalization and their belief that Democrats are not fighting for American workers,” says Greenberg, now based in Washington, D.C., where he continues to work in political polling. “‘America First’ rhetoric was a part of Biden’s campaign. It’s still part of ‘build back better.’”

And that puts Republicans in a strategically difficult position.

“You have this battle kind of in the mainstream between Reagan Democrats—who voted for Reagan, came back to vote for Bill Clinton, some voted for Obama—and a whole new set of voters brought in by Trump,” says Greenberg.

In both 2016 and 2020, Trump brought in new voters—people animated by “white nationalism and racial resentment, and whose overwhelming motivation is a deep worry that Black people and immigrants will control the country,” and who are “voting straight-ticket [Republican] to ‘save the country,’” says Greenberg. But by courting those votes, Republicans risk pushing the Biden Republicans further into the Democratic side of the ledger.

Another option, of course, is to try and keep these new Trump voters active—which could be a major political gamble, especially when Trump isn’t on the ballot—and try to run up margins with the Reagan Democrats. One big problem with that: Joe Biden.

Biden lacks the cosmopolitan appeal of Obama, but to Reagan Democrats, that’s a feature not a bug. “Obama was pro-globalization, and believed we benefited from it,” says Greenberg. “He would have been embarrassed to go see a company that was bringing jobs back from abroad to build in America. He would have been embarrassed to highlight that. But Biden will.” It’s Trump’s economic populism without Trump’s dog-sees-a-squirrel message discipline.

“Trump voters, a large portion of them, want a welfare state that is dependable for working people,” says Greenberg. And Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion Covid relief package could make a tangible difference in their lives. Do the Reagan Democrats stick with non-Trump Republicans if Biden’s Democrats deliver reopened schools, a strong economy, a huge investment in infrastructure and a $3,600-per-child benefit to families on top of a $1,400 stimulus check?

Much, much more at https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ ... erg-473330