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Sarah Audelo, seen during a 2016 event when she held a top role at Rock The Vote, has spent years in Democratic politics. She is stepping down from her current role as the executive director at Alliance for Youth Action to make way for younger leaders. Michael Kovac/Getty Images hide caption

Sarah Audelo, seen during a 2016 event when she held a top role at Rock The Vote, has spent years in Democratic politics. She is stepping down from her current role as the executive director at Alliance for Youth Action to make way for younger leaders.

Still a few years shy of turning 40, Sarah Audelo says she has aged out of her job.

She's spent the last few years in charge of one of the country's largest youth organizing networks, and now Audelo is stepping down to make room for new, younger leadership.

"It's like totally bittersweet to step away, but absolutely the right time," Audelo said of her departure, which had been in the works for a while. "I'm 37. This is a youth organization. It is time to make a way for folks who are actually on TikTok take the helm of the Alliance."

That idea, that someone still under the age of 40 is too old to lead a political group, would be unthinkable in other parts of Washington where the ranks of leadership can often be stagnant.

But like many other younger organizers, Audelo sees her departure as a natural evolution to keep groups that are in the Alliance a progressive network of local grassroots organizations focused on mobilizing young people relevant. During years of experience in Democratic politics, she has seen young people get disillusioned with her party and the political system in general.

Audelo joined the Alliance for Youth Action back in 2017 and was the first Latina to hold the job. But she'd already been working in the youth organizing space for years.

She had already worked at Rock The Vote and Generation Progress. She also served as millennial vote director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.

A Bakersfield, Calif., native, Audelo said she got her start in politics organizing around issues of reproductive rights after moving to Washington, D.C., for college.

"The sad part of all that is I had to leave my hometown to gain those skills, I had to leave my hometown to learn that organizing was possible," she said. "What the Alliance does is try to support young people and the political homes they're creating for their peers across the country. So you don't have to leave your hometown because a lot of our hometowns need some love. No one should have to leave their hometowns to make change."

Audelo spoke with NPR about the challenges of being a woman of color leading in the progressive nonprofit space, the challenges Democrats face in engaging young people and why so many young people showed up at the polls in November, defying so many stereotypes about their political behavior.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

JUANA SUMMERS: You're coming up to the end of your time at the Alliance. What are you most proud of?

SARAH AUDELO: A lot of what we do at the Alliance, we try to be the hype people of youth organizing. There's so much negative energy and information or stereotypes out there about young people. I love busting through all of that and saying, 'Let me tell you what young people have been doing.' So I like to think that we've played a small part in shifting some of the narrative around the youth vote that has historically been terrible.

We also over the last few years embraced our identity as a funding intermediary, because we saw a gap young people needed the resources to continue the work. And so I've been able to, you know, with the support of my incredible all young women of color team of development staff, move $17 million to the field in the time that I've been at the Alliance. So really proud of that.

What is different about the experience of being an executive director as a woman of color?

I was very lucky to have a great transition that I actually learned a lot from, and I've been trying to implement as part of mine. But when I look at some of the stories of my peers, or the executive directors that we support in our network, the expectations that folks put on women of color, it's a little surreal. The expectations that we'll just be able to solve any of the issues of race and racism in organizations because we happen to be at the head of said organization.

I've had peers who have had to go on, or felt pressure to go on apology tours for the bad actions of their predecessors, as they feel like they need to reset relationships with folks. I've had peers whose money has gotten pulled because their white predecessors are no longer there, and donors are cranky about that. For whatever reason, they don't trust the new leadership that has come in.

And then there's like the stuff inside where imposter syndrome is so real. And I think this is part of why having my peer group is important, because we see each other in all the 'badassness' that we are. Peers can help cut through all of that. Part of being an executive director is you're hustling for your organization, you're trying to tell the story of the work. Getting asked to speak on panels is kind of the norm. But sometimes you're like, 'Am I here because like, you know, I know what I'm talking about? Or because there's like a diversity quota that you're trying to reach?'

Working at a youth organization as a woman, as a Latina, I check a lot of boxes and it's really easy to question, 'Why am I being asked to do this thing?' I don't remember at what point in my career I just kind of was like, 'F it. I'm taking up this space. I'm gonna try to bring some others with me, and I'm gonna fight. I'm gonna rep my people like...hard.'

When you talk about questioning why you've been invited to speak on a panel, or have a seat at a table people might be surprised to hear that still happens in progressive spaces.

It shouldn't happen, but it totally still does. We still have a lot of white dude leadership that is centered and uplifted in this work. That, in some ways is timeless. Now, don't get me wrong. There are a lot of young people who are pushing back against that. There's a lot of shifts, where even when we do have white dudes that are in power, there's a better sharing of that power than I think we've seen in other places.

Turnout was up in every part of the electorate including among young people in 2020. You had a front-row seat to that. Why do you think youth turnout surged last year?

We had been seeing signs that it was coming for a while. The increases in turnout during the midterms. In these odd year races, there were increases in turnout. Young people were engaging, not just in voting to make change and to push back against the Trump administration, but they were taking it to the streets. They were showing up in city council hearings. And we saw this during the pandemic, too. When stuff went remote, young people were still staying engaged.

And so we were hopeful that this would continue, even though we couldn't be in the field, which is terrifying for youth organizing. You've really got to reach young people where they're at and that is peer to peer. Online totally exists. But when you have too many states that don't have online voter registration, you've got to register them in person, you've got to walk them in, in person, you've got to navigate through misinformation in person. And so we were absolutely nervous.

But it was really great to see young people just innovating and creating online communities to continue the organizing to bring folks in. And so yeah, when we saw those numbers come out, it was amazing because we always knew that it was possible, right? We had 50% of young people who voted in 2020. That's an 11 point increase from 2016. And now we're like, 'Alright, let's show them what that voting gets you.' Let's remind these elected officials that they owe these young voters for their seats. And you know, the [Democratic] Party's been so-so, ever since.

Democrats have struggled to pass some key parts of the agenda that they campaigned on, and issues that motivated young people to vote for them. Without those victories, do you believe that Democrats will be able to replicate their success with young voters again in 2022 and 2024?

You know, there's a reason why about a third of young people don't identify with a political party. When we are out registering people in the field, you're looking at a third Republican, a third independent, a third Democratic, and this is something that's pretty unique to young voters. It's not because that independent voter is in the middle, and they're like super moderate on the issues that those independent voters, they are not the [Joe] Manchins of the world, or the [Kyrsten] Sinemas of the world.

A lot of young people are so fed up with the Democratic Party, that they're like, 'I'm not going to identify as that. I don't want to be part of that.' And those are the numbers the party should be paying attention to, of young people who are just so fed up over this two-party system, because Democrats keep lowering the bar about what is even possible at a time where we have to be raising the bar. It's surreal that too many who happen to have a D next to their name, are just willing to negotiate away what feels like, honestly, like the humanity of our people in our communities.

How has the White House done when it comes to youth outreach?

There is definitely an eagerness to connect and to communicate, at least that we've experienced, I think, though, where things could be better is we need the president and vice president to sit down themselves with these young people. There's been a lot of roundtables we know that have happened, but young people frequently are not at them. And as we know, [young people] in many cases have the most to lose on these fights.

So some of the Office of Public Engagement staff, they've been great and responsive. But this is where we actually need the president and vice president's time. We need their face time. We need them to sit and be in relationship and hear directly from the young organizers, who got all those young people to turn out to vote.

Originally posted here:

She's been on the front lines of the Democratic Party's struggles with representation - NPR

I want to stop here and say I believe, as does Shor, that educational polarization is serving here as a crude measure of class polarization. We tend to think of class as driven by income, but in terms of how its formed and practiced in America right now, education tracks facets that paychecks miss. A high school dropout who owns a successful pest extermination company in the Houston exurbs might have an income that looks a lot like a software engineers at Google, while an adjunct professors will look more like an apprentice plumbers. But in terms of class experience who they know, what they believe, where theyve lived, what they watch, who they marry and how they vote, act and protest the software engineer is more like the adjunct professor.

Either way, the sorting that educational polarization is picking up, inexact as the term may be, puts Democrats at a particular disadvantage in the Senate, as college-educated voters cluster in and around cities while non-college voters are heavily rural. This is why Shor believes Trump was good for the Republican Party, despite its losing the popular vote in 2016, the House in 2018 and the Senate and the presidency in 2020. Sure, maybe he underperforms the generic Republican by whatever, Shor said. But hes engineered a real and perhaps persistent bias in the Electoral College, and then when you get to the Senate, its so much worse. As he put it, Donald Trump enabled Republicans to win with a minority of the vote.

The second problem Democrats face is the sharp decline in ticket splitting a byproduct of the nationalization of politics. As recently as 2008, the correlation between how a state voted for president and how it voted in Senate elections was about 71 percent. Close, but plenty of room for candidates to outperform their party. In 2020, it was 95.6 percent.

The days when, say, North Dakotas Republicans would cheerfully vote for a Democrat for the Senate are long past. Just ask Heidi Heitkamp, the defeated North Dakota Democrat whos now lobbying her former colleagues to protect the rich from paying higher taxes on inheritances. There remain exceptions to this rule Joe Manchin being the most prominent but they loom so large in politics because they are now so rare. From 1960 to 1990, about half of senators represented a state that voted for the other partys nominee for president, the political scientist Lee Drutman noted. Today, there are six.

Put it all together, and the problem Democrats face is this: Educational polarization has made the Senate even more biased against Democrats than it was, and the decline in ticket splitting has made it harder for individual Democratic candidates to run ahead of their party.

Atop this analysis, Shor has built an increasingly influential theory of what the Democrats must do to avoid congressional calamity. The chain of logic is this: Democrats are on the edge of an electoral abyss. To avoid it, they need to win states that lean Republican. To do that, they need to internalize that they are not like and do not understand the voters they need to win over. Swing voters in these states are not liberals, are not woke and do not see the world in the way that the people who staff and donate to Democratic campaigns do.

All this comes down to a simple prescription: Democrats should do a lot of polling to figure out which of their views are popular and which are not popular, and then they should talk about the popular stuff and shut up about the unpopular stuff. Traditional diversity and inclusion is super important, but polling is one of the only tools we have to step outside of ourselves and see what the median voter actually thinks, Shor said. This theory is often short-handed as popularism. It doesnt sound as if it would be particularly controversial.

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Opinion | David Shor Is Telling Democrats What They Dont Want to Hear - The New York Times

A progressive group warns Democrats they're facing a "double threat" heading into the midterms: voters of color aren't supporting Democratic candidates at the same rates, and the Republican Party is inspiring first-time voters of color to turn out and support it instead.

Why it matters: Democrats may control the White House and both chambers of Congress now, but history shows their party is set to lose seats next cycle. These latest findings question their strength with Black, Latino and AAPI voters typically considered reliable Democratic voting blocs.

The big takeaway: Democrats made gains with some white voters in 2020 mostly non-evangelical Christians but saw once-reliable members of their base shift to Republicans.

What they're saying: "These trends ... demonstrate the urgent need for campaigns and independent groups to stop assuming voters of color will vote Democrat," Way to Win writes in its report.

But, but, but: Democrats cracked 50% support among Latinos in all 11 states overall, and over half of the first-time 2020 voters in these areas supported them.

The group's suggestion for how to win in 2022? "Progressives must find messages that unify the whole coalition around a shared vision."

The bottom line: Democrats' "winning" coalition, the report says, is multigenerational, multiracial and has near equal representation of white voters and voters of color.

See the article here:

Left warns of double threat - Axios

In July 2019, a group of left-wing protesters interrupted a panel on legal fights against the Trump administration during a national progressive conference at the Convention Center.

Upset about a new state law they feared would dilute District Attorney Larry Krasners authority, they demanded to know where Pennsylvanias attorney general, Josh Shapiro, stood on the issue. Yes or no! they chanted.

Shapiro, a Montgomery County Democrat, insisted that he had no interest in undermining Krasner. The protesters walked away skeptical but willing to give him a chance.

Two years later, Shapiro is on the cusp of announcing his long-expected campaign for governor, having effectively cleared the Democratic field before he even launched his bid. Far from facing any challenge from the left, he has unified his party more than a year before the general election in sharp contrast with the crowded Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, where questions of identity and ideology are at the fore.

It is a feat virtually unprecedented in modern Pennsylvania Democratic politics. Veteran strategists could not recall another open-seat gubernatorial primary election here in which there was no serious competition.

And yet, the 48-year-old Abington residents march to the nomination is not much of a surprise. It has been a project almost two decades in the making, as Shapiro has ascended from congressional staffer to state rep to board chairman of the states third-largest county to second-term attorney general and presumptive nominee for governor.

Party leaders praise him as a skilled communicator, prodigious fund-raiser, and strong leader with a record of nonpartisan accomplishments such as turning a spotlight on the Catholic Churchs cover-up of sexual abuse that can cut through a polarized electorate in a purple state.

And its crucial that hes a proven winner in statewide elections: In both 2016 and 2020, he got the most votes of anyone on the ballot in Pennsylvania, including Joe Biden.

Shapiros campaign announcement could come as early as this week. A spokesperson for him declined to discuss his plans. And its impossible to know what the political climate will be like a year from now; his campaign strategy depends in part on which candidate emerges from the crowded GOP primary.

READ MORE: Abortion is a key issue for Pa. Democrats, and it could supercharge the 2022 midterms

Republicans have already been trying to hold him responsible for Philadelphias unchecked gun violence and tied him to Gov. Tom Wolfs pandemic-related business shutdowns. They say the Democrats unabiding faith in Shapiro is misguided.

Democrats will regret giving him a free pass, said Mark Harris, a GOP strategist based in Pittsburgh whose client, Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R., Centre), is seen as a possible contender in the race.

But even despite getting a highly unusual, if offhand, public endorsement from the sitting governor three years before the election, he has occasionally faced blistering criticism from Democrats on criminal justice issues, including from two of the biggest names Krasner and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.

Still, Democrats say hes their closest thing to a safe bet at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to deliver a major setback to abortion rights and Donald Trump is hinting at another White House bid raising the specter of another attempt to subvert democracy.

Republicans hold majorities in both houses of the state legislature, though that could change after the midterm elections, and Democrats say their biggest priority is retaining Wolfs veto pen after his term expires in January 2023. Itll be a tall order: Neither party has won three consecutive gubernatorial elections since 1950.

We as Democrats know if we do not have a Democratic governor to replace Wolf, we will become Texas or Georgia or Florida. We have an out-of-control legislature who is trying to destroy democracy, theyre engaging in a sham recount, said Jill Zipin, a party activist from Montgomery County who has known Shapiro for years. Democrats understand that democracy is on the line, and were not playing games here. And that Josh will be a defender of democracy and that Josh will be able to protect us.

There are lots of ambitious people in politics. So when theres an open seat for statewide office or a chance to run against an incumbent from the other party, usually theres competition.

Wolf, once a little-known businessman from York, had to spend $10 million of his own money in the 2014 gubernatorial primary to beat prominent rivals including former U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz and then-State Treasurer Rob McCord.

READ MORE: Who is running for governor of Pa. in 2022?

In 2010, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato beat state Auditor General Jack Wagner, State Sen. Anthony Williams, and Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel for the nomination. Before them, Ed Rendell had to beat Bob Casey, the auditor general and son of a popular former governor.

And so on.

So howd Shapiro get to this moment?

As with most things in politics, he pulled it off through a combination of skill, luck, and hard work, according to interviews with more than a dozen advisers, party leaders, lawmakers, and strategists.

Perhaps no single event or inflection point made Shapiro the de facto leader of the party.

Rather, it was the accumulation of political capital, accrued over years of networking and party-building, and a relentless drive. That sometimes meant sidestepping an old ally, as when the Montgomery County Democrats showed Commissioner Hoeffel the door a decade ago in part to pave the way for Shapiro, whod served as his chief of staff in Congress.

Democrats are the party of herding cats and hes worked hard at opening his door, listening carefully to input and responding, said Williams, the Philadelphia state senator. Hes not a glad-hander. Hes more of a lets-get-to-know-one-another. And if theres an issue we share common ground on, he follows through.

READ MORE: Heres where candidates for Pa. Senate and governor stand on Texas abortion ban

As a young state representative in the mid-2000s, Shapiro developed a reputation as a reformer, working to pass new ethics legislation and playing a key role in brokering a bipartisan power-sharing arrangement for House leadership. Long before the rest of the Philadelphia suburbs turned deep blue, Shapiro and running mate Leslie Richards helped Democrats take control of the county government for the first time, in 2011.

Zipin called that a really, really big deal, recalling how Shapiro went to countless picnics and fund-raisers and took the time to meet local candidates. What a lot of people dont understand who arent involved in politics: Politics is really grassroots, and candidates develop at the very local level, she said. Josh understands that.

Good timing has also helped. The 2016 resignation of attorney general and onetime Democratic star Kathleen Kane, after her perjury conviction, opened the door to his first statewide bid.

Despite lacking courtroom experience, Shapiro won a three-way primary that spring, beating Stephen Zappala, the Allegheny County district attorney and son of a former Supreme Court justice who had the support of Philadelphias powerful union leader John J. Dougherty. Then Shapiro won the general election even as Donald Trump won the state for the presidency.

In the ensuing months and years, Trump offered a useful foil to Democratic attorneys general across the country. Shapiro was no exception, filing lawsuits against Trumps travel ban and scores of other policies and burnishing an image with liberals as a check on the White House.

Shapiro also took on the big fights, as hes put it, releasing a damning grand jury report on the Catholic Churchs sex-abuse scandal and helping resolve a dispute between two Western Pennsylvania health-care giants that he claimed had left many patients excluded from a major network of doctors and hospitals.

He clearly made it known under no circumstances are the men and women of Western Pennsylvania going to be casualties in this battle, said Darin Kelly, president of the Allegheny/Fayette Central Labor Council.

In his most recent election, Shapiro outperformed Biden and other Democrats in Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh, and surrounding counties, as well as in parts of Northeastern Pennsylvania where the party has struggled in recent years.

READ MORE: The survival of U.S. democracy may hinge on this decision by Pa.s next governor | Will Bunch

His electoral success notwithstanding, it didnt always look as though Shapiro would run uncontested.

Not long after Krasner was elected Philadelphia district attorney on a progressive reform platform in 2017, he started lashing out at the new attorney general. After some assistant prosecutors left Krasners office and took jobs under Shapiro, Krasner has said, staffers in the DAs Office started jokingly referring to the AGs Office as Paraguay, a reference to the South American country where Nazis sought refuge after World War II. Krasner wasnt seen as a likely gubernatorial rival, but his criticism seemed to suggest a level of discontent with Shapiro, at least in the criminal justice reform movement.

Fetterman, who once openly considered running for governor, repeatedly clashed with Shapiro on the Board of Pardons, a panel on which they both serve that can recommend commutation for people convicted of violent crimes who have since reformed or maintained their innocence. Shapiro at times opposed Fettermans push to recommend commutations.

Fetterman has since decided to run for U.S. Senate.

Shapiro has noted that he voted in favor of many commutations but said of his critics: If theyre charging me with being cautious, then guilty as charged. These decisions weigh on me.

His allies point out that after the police killing of George Floyd last year, the attorney general helped strike a deal on legislation establishing a confidential state misconduct database aimed at preventing problem cops fired by police departments from getting jobs at new departments.

It was a modest measure, but won the support both of progressives and the Fraternal Order of Police.

More broadly, Shapiro has maintained a dialogue with key progressive legislators over the years. He seems willing to reach out to folks who may disagree with him on things and have an open conversation, said J.J. Abbott, Wolfs former press secretary.

There were efforts in some progressive Democratic circles to recruit a female challenger, though those plans never went anywhere, according to people familiar with the matter.

After winning a second term as attorney general last November, Shapiro established himself as the front-runner.

In the weeks that followed, Shapiro got even more of a boost from Trump and his allies who were determined to challenge or overturn the election in Pennsylvania.

In the tense weeks before Bidens inauguration, Pennsylvanias attorney general became a ubiquitous presence on MSNBC and CNN and defended the states secretary of state in court.

That just cemented such a sense of recognition for him and identifying with what he stood for, said Kathy Bozinski, chairwoman of the Democratic Party in Luzerne County, in the northeastern part of the state. I think candidates saw that and said, Hey, thats a juggernaut we probably cant overtake.

Its a card Shapiro has already shown he intends to play when the campaign gets up and running. Make no mistake, he posted on Twitter last week. In 2022, the Big Lie will be on the ballot and weve got to vote against it.

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How Josh Shapiro locked down the Democratic nomination for governor without even announcing he would run - The Philadelphia Inquirer

In a private meeting with Mr. Biden and nearly a dozen House Democrats in swing-districts on Tuesday, the prospect of limiting who could benefit from a promised two years of free community college came up as part of a broader discussion about the program, according to Representative Susan Wild, Democrat of Pennsylvania.

But, she added, the general sentiment was, we should not be putting means-testing in on universal child care, or lets call it universal preschool.

Its completely out of the childs control, obviously, and, its an unfair impediment, she said.

The politics of the debate are murky. Republicans relish attacking Democrats for showering benefits on the rich. They caricature tax credits meant to transition the nation to electric vehicles as subsidies for Tesla owners and mock federally paid family and medical leave by singling out executives who already receive the benefit from their companies. The children of millionaires, they warn, will be among those going to community college for free.

The Democrat party has become the party of the wealthy and affluent, Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, wrote in an essay for The Washington Examiner published on Tuesday.

Many of the charges are exaggerated. Millionaires children may not be flocking to community college, free or not. Ms. Sherrills amendment lifted the income cap on the child care tax assistance, but the benefit is still set up to limit child care costs to no more than 7 percent of a familys spending. For truly affluent families, child care is a much smaller percentage than that, so subsidies would still be limited. A million-dollar wealth cap still applies to the program as well.

And as Republicans argue the spending helps the rich, they decry tax increases clearly aimed at the rich.

Still the charges could sting.

There are programs where I say, if the government is helping out somebody like me, that money is probably coming away from somebody who needs it a lot more, Mr. Kaine said.

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Benefits for All or Just the Needy? Manchins Demand Focuses Debate - The New York Times

Democratic leaders are discussing changes to a signature bill to lower prescription drug prices in a bid to win over a handful of moderate Democrats needed for passage.

House and Senate leaders have discussed a proposal that would remove one of the provisions moderates find most objectionable in Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiBiden administration competency doubts increase Yellen on invoking 14th Amendment to ignore debt limit: 'We shouldn't ever be in that position' Democrats weigh changes to drug pricing measure to win over moderates MOREs (D-Calif.) bill, a cap on prices based on what other wealthy countries pay for drugs, and have pitched the proposal to moderates, sources say.

But some moderates who voted against the drug pricing measure last month in a House committee are still not signing on, illustrating the difficult path forward for a key piece of Democrats agenda that is intended to help pay for President BidenJoe BidenMajority of Americans concerned about cyberattacks on critical groups: poll Labor secretary says 194K jobs added in September was 'not the best number' Biden task force has reunited 52 families separated under Trump: report MOREs sweeping Build Back Better package.

Rep. Scott PetersScott H. PetersDemocrats weigh changes to drug pricing measure to win over moderates Internal battles heat up over Biden agenda Moderate Democrat says he can't back House spending plan 'in its current form' MORE (D-Calif.), one of the three House lawmakers who voted no last month, said he spoke with White House staff and Speakers office staff on a call last week about ways to bridge their differences on drug pricing, but that there has not yet been a resolution.

I think it's great that they're talking to me, but I also don't want to overstate, I don't want to suggest that they proposed something yet that I think will work or will pass, Peters told The Hill.

I didn't expect it to come to a resolution in one meeting, and so we'll continue those conversations, he added.

House and Senate leaders have discussed a proposal that would use domestic prices to help set a cap on drug costs, rather than using the lower prices paid in other countries, a move to somewhat scale back the legislation.

That proposal would also allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, but would not extend those lower drug prices to people with private insurance plans, sources say. That would significantly scale back the scope of the measure, in a move that stems from what is allowed under the complicated Senate rules used to bypass a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Peters, as well as a handful of other moderates, have concerns about the impact on drug companies ability to innovate and develop new treatments.

Advocates for action on the issue have expressed frustration with Peters and other moderates, saying they are simply doing the bidding of the pharmaceutical industry. Drug companies are lobbying hard against the legislation, and have launched a seven-figure ad campaign against it.

In addition to Peters, Reps. Kurt SchraderWalter (Kurt) Kurt SchraderDemocrats weigh changes to drug pricing measure to win over moderates Internal battles heat up over Biden agenda Moderate Democrat says he can't back House spending plan 'in its current form' MORE (D-Ore.) and Kathleen RiceKathleen Maura RiceDemocrats weigh changes to drug pricing measure to win over moderates Internal battles heat up over Biden agenda Moderate Democrat says he can't back House spending plan 'in its current form' MORE (D-N.Y.) voted against the drug pricing measure last month. Reps. Stephanie MurphyStephanie MurphyDemocrats weigh changes to drug pricing measure to win over moderates Sinema slams delay of infrastructure vote: 'Inexcusable' Progressives hit back after moderates take aim at Pelosi MORE (D-Fla.) and Lou CorreaJose (Lou) Luis CorreaDemocrats weigh changes to drug pricing measure to win over moderates Democrats grasping at straws on immigration The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Alibaba - Government shutdown fears increase as leaders dig in MORE (D-Calif.) also cosponsored a scaled-back, alternative drug pricing measure from Peters and Schrader that they say would address their concerns about innovation.

Democrats can only lose three votes in the House and still pass the package. And in the Senate, they cannot lose a single vote, given unified Republican opposition.

Asked about progress on drug pricing, a senior Democratic aide said the provisions remain under discussion.

In the Senate, Sens. Robert MenendezRobert (Bob) MenendezDemocrats weigh changes to drug pricing measure to win over moderates Advocates frustrated by shrinking legal migration under Biden Rand Paul blocks quick vote on House-passed B Iron Dome funding MORE (D-N.J.) and Kyrsten SinemaKyrsten SinemaDemocrats set up chaotic end-of-year stretch Democrats weigh changes to drug pricing measure to win over moderates McConnell vows GOP won't help raise debt ceiling in December after Schumer 'tantrum' MORE (D-Ariz.) are question marks on the drug pricing measures.

Menendez said Wednesday that he has had discussion with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron WydenRonald (Ron) Lee WydenDemocrats weigh changes to drug pricing measure to win over moderates To build back better, put a fee on corporate carbon pollution Overnight Energy & Environment Biden set to restore national monuments rolled back by Trump MORE (D-Ore.), who is taking the lead on crafting the legislation in that chamber, but that he had not seen enough specifics to form a view.

Show me a proposal and I'll tell you how I feel, he said.

A Sinema spokesperson said the senator is carefully reviewing various proposals around this issue -- and, as always, does not negotiate those policy specifics through the press.

In a sign of the frustration with the handful of Democratic lawmakers expressing resistance on the issue, Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersDemocrats set up chaotic end-of-year stretch Democrats weigh changes to drug pricing measure to win over moderates Internal battles heat up over Biden agenda MORE (I-Vt.) told reporters on Friday he would begin calling out some of those members of Congress, throwing up roadblocks on drug pricing, and pointed to pharmaceutical industry lobbying and campaign donations.

You've got lobbying firms led by former Democratic leaders, Republican leaders working overtime to try to defeat this legislation, he said.

The Democratic group Protect Our Care is also putting pressure on both Sinema and Menendez to support drug pricing action, including ads in Arizona and a mobile billboard outside Menendezs office in New Jersey.

Backers point out that action on the issue is extremely popular in polls. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll earlier this year found that 88 percent of the public supports allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices.

Many Democrats in competitive districts also favor action.

In a meeting between Biden and such frontline members this week, almost every member who was on that Zoom call mentioned Medicare negotiation as a top priority for them, Rep. Susan WildSusan WildDemocrats weigh changes to drug pricing measure to win over moderates Biden meets with vulnerable House Democrats with agenda in limbo Congress needs to help schools meet mental health challenges MORE (D-Pa.) said on a call hosted by the group Lower Drug Prices Now.

Some employer groups are also pushing for action on drug prices to lower their costs, but are watching to see if the measure will apply to private insurance and not just Medicare. A provision in the measure to limit drug price increases to the rate of inflation could apply to private insurance, sources say.

Getting substantial savings from drug pricing provisions is also key for paying for other health care priorities in the package, like extending enhanced financial assistance under ObamaCare, expanding Medicaid in the 12 GOP-led states that have so far refused, and widening Medicare benefits to include dental, hearing and vision coverage.

Rep. Peter WelchPeter Francis WelchDemocrats weigh changes to drug pricing measure to win over moderates Schumer feels heat to get Manchin and Sinema on board Failed drug vote points to bigger challenges for Democrats MORE (D-Vt.) acknowledged that changes could have to be made on a variety of fronts, including drug pricing, to win enough votes.

We've advocated for it, now how do we get the votes to pass it? he said. We're just transitioning from advocacy to legislative negotiation.

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Democrats weigh changes to drug pricing measure to win over moderates | TheHill - The Hill

Narrow majorities and an ambitious policy agenda have proven to be a tough combination for Democrats. In the past few weeks, congressional Democrats have been involved in a number of talks among party factions and with the Biden administration over the fate of two major bills: their bipartisan infrastructure bill and their $3.5 trillion spending plan. At this point, too, both progressive and more moderate Democrats have threatened to walk away from the deals one reason why so many headlines are declaring that Democrats are in disarray. Moreover, regardless of the outcome of these specific bills, it is likely that struggles between moderate and progressive members of the party will continue to be an issue going forward.

But does this mean that the internal fault lines in the Democratic Party are likely to be detrimental to its functioning? Or are we just seeing healthy negotiating in a party that represents a diverse array of constituencies and interests?

On one hand, the resonance of the Democrats in disarray trope is due to the medias interest in covering conflict, and as was true historically, the Democratic Party remains a patchwork party. Coalitions have certainly changed gone are the days of the uneasy New Deal Coalition between civil rights supporters and the movements opponents but Democrats must now balance a multiracial coalition that is multifaceted in what it wants politically.

For instance, the past several election cycles have featured debates between progressive and moderate Democrats over how far to the left the party should go in its stance on raising the minimum wage, creating a universal health care system and addressing climate change. Splits in the Democratic Party are further complicated by the fact that support from voters without a college degree, who tend to be less likely to identify as liberal, is declining, while college-educated voters, who tend to be more liberal, are growing in influence. These ideological divides are also evident by age: Younger voters, who are generally more progressive especially on issues like climate change are another important constituency shaping disagreements on economic and cultural issues in the party.

Yet, no matter how uneasy the coalition of progressives and moderates might be at times, Democrats are overall much closer ideologically than they were previously. Additionally, negative partisanship means that no faction in the Democratic Party is likely to defect to the Republican Party or do anything that would help Republicans electorally (like splinter off and form a new political group). Finally, the nationalized nature of our party politics means that all members fortunes are increasingly tied to the party brand.

That said, even though there is less ideological diversity in the Democratic Party today very few Democrats identify as conservative, for instance the question of just how liberal Democrats are willing to go is still a big one that can cause a lot of problems for the party. As underscored by the recent negotiations over infrastructure and the budget, its possible, too, that some of these ideological fights are pretty muddy. In the House, theres the progressive faction, represented by Rep. Pramila Jayapal; the moderate faction, represented by Rep. Josh Gottheimer and the eight other House moderates who have worked to limit the spending in the bills; and the faction of mainstream liberals, who are ready and willing to cut deals, represented by leaders like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Three ideological factions is certainly challenging to manage, but it also makes sense for a party that represents such a wide range of constituencies. Often, compromises can be found to honor different preferences and priorities. On Friday, for instance, President Biden and Pelosi said that voting on the bipartisan infrastructure bill must again be delayed until Democrats are able to make progress on their partys spending plan. This move was a victory for progressives in that they had threatened to tank the bipartisan bill without being able to also vote on the Democrats ambitious budget. Cutting the spending plans $3.5 trillion price tag something moderates in the party have long pushed for also points to the limits of what progressives will be able to demand in future negotiations. Remember, though, this big-tent party approach to politics isnt necessarily a bad thing; its part of governing.

There is a more concerning possibility that Democrats are divided not only on questions of policy but also on an establishment versus anti-establishment dimension. Hints of this appear in the efforts of Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin to cultivate political reputations independent from even in defiance of their party. Anti-establishment rhetoric has sometimes been a staple of the left, too. Sen. Bernie Sanders liked to use these appeals during his two presidential bids, presenting himself to supporters as a rebuke to the party establishment.

Former FiveThirtyEighter Harry Enten and I wrote about this phenomenon in the Republican Party in 2017, and four years later, it doesnt seem like it was a positive development for the GOP. Thats because unlike policy, outsider status isnt something that can be easily solved by compromise. As a result, the Republican Party has become less open to dissenting views and a big-tent approach to policy and instead more dominated by a loyalty to former President Donald Trump.

Its possible a similar fate could befall Democrats. After all, Democrats two major bills could still fall apart, suggesting that the partys differences are a serious hindrance to accomplishing Bidens agenda. Its also possible that some Democratic factions distrust the partys leadership enough to create a permanent fault line around outsider status, as the Tea Party movement did for the Republicans. However, the lack of a polarizing internal figure like Trump works in Democrats favor, and most congressional Democrats seem to at least want legislative victories, not just take public stances.

So what will determine whether intra-party disagreement proves to be a healthy back-and-forth among Democrats or a dysfunctional rivalry? There are a few things to look for.

First, the depth of the policy disagreements. So far, it hasnt seemed like there was much disagreement over the Democrats need to pursue both bills just over the strategy and dollar amount. That said, within the party, you can still see the stirrings of disagreement around whether the country needs some of its basic structures overhauled including the economy and income inequality, voting rights protections, and questions like admitting new states or restructuring the courts. These issues could become widely held Democratic priorities, or they could expose serious variation in the way different legislators and their voters view American politics.

The other danger is that the divisions among Democrats start to look like those in the party system at large that is, more splits rooted in social identities that are increasingly focused on winning rather than on identifying common goals. Put another way, if any faction of the Democratic party becomes more interested in messaging than legislating, itll lose incentives to compromise. In fact, the incentives will ultimately go the other way, making it more attractive to take a stand than to pass a bill.

But the Democratic Party doesnt seem close to this situation right now. While it may not always seem like it, the different factions in the Democratic Party still represent policy differences not fault lines. Thats namely because ideological differences still dont map perfectly onto the partys different constituencies. Yes, some of the partys moderates, like Manchin, represent constituencies further from the mainstream of the Democratic Party places with more white, older voters. But this isnt true of all moderate Democrats. Rep. Carolyn Bordeaux of Georgia, for instance, represents a majority-minority district that has substantial populations of Black, Latino and Asian residents. And while someone like Jayapal, who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, represents a far more diverse district with a lot of college-educated voters, Rep. Ilhan Omar, who isnt that different from Jayapal politically, hails from a district with a much lower share of college-educated voters. As a result, ideological differences are not likely to create permanently warring factions in the Democratic Party at least at this point.

Party divisions are inevitable in big-tent coalitions. Policy disagreements across the ideological spectrum are healthy: Its arguably the efforts to flatten out these divisions among Republicans that have made the past few years so troubling for the Republican Party and its role in American democracy. The nature of partisan politics has also made it harder for internal factions to splinter from the Democratic Party. Trying to form a third party would tank electoral prospects and all but ensure Republican victories at the federal level. And Republicans are unlikely to go after progressives, regardless of how disgruntled that group might become with the Democratic leadership. This should allow progressives and moderates to form flexible coalitions in the long term, and hold off the biggest threat to party stability one faction getting angry enough to leave altogether.

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Are Democrats Dysfunctional Or Just Disagreeing? - FiveThirtyEight

Breaking up with the Democratic Party feels like the right thing to do because I believe I can have a greater impact this way, he wrote. Am I right? Lets find out. Together.

POLITICO reported early last month that Yang plans to form a third party following his experiences running as a Democrat and what he sees as the failures of both major political parties to address the needs of Americans.

Yang is set to release a book titled, Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy later this week. His nascent third party will carry a similar name, the Forward Party, according to several reports based on his book.

Yang said that his new focus is on promoting adoption of open primaries and ranked-choice voting, which New York City and several other cities have instituted in recent years. He said he believes those reforms would give voters more genuine choice and our system more dynamism.

Still, he said that he is not urging others to follow his lead in switching their party registration given that it could lock people out from participating in partisan primaries in many areas.

Yang first gained attention early in the 2020 Democratic primary campaign for making universal basic income his signature issue, as well as a smattering of other heterogeneous positions. He then sought to use the national media attention he garnered during that race to springboard into contention in the New York City mayoral race, and even became a frontrunner for a time before fizzling out and finishing fourth in the Democratic primary.

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Yang officially breaks with Democratic Party - POLITICO

Adam Metzendorf announced Tuesday his candidacy for Congress, hoping to challenge incumbent Republican Rep. David Schweikertin Arizonas 6th Congressional District.

Metzendorf, a 33-year-old Scottsdale resident, isrunning as a Democrat in a historically conservative and affluent area that includes Scottsdale, Paradise Valley and Fountain Hills.

Metzendorf is making his first move in the political arena after steppingdown last week as the director of membership experience for the Phoenix Suns, the Phoenix Mercury and the Arizona Rattlers.

Seeking public office is something he felt compelled to do after the events that have transpired this year in Washington, such the Jan. 6Capitol riot and the findings of ethical violations among members of Congress.

What really got me interested in a political career was how I was brought upwith my faith and my family. When something is wrong, I was taught that you cant just sit on the sidelines, Metzendorf said.In Washington, people are putting party and politics over actual human beings and constituents, and it is leading us down a path that is wrong. I cant sit idly by anymore.

Metzendorf joins Democrats Jevin Hodge and Eric Ulis in the party's 2022 primary race in the district. Republican Elijah Norton is challenging Schweikert in the GOP primary.

Like the other candidates, Metzendorf makes Schweikert's ethical lapses a centerpiece of his pitch to voters.

Last year the House of Representatives reprimanded Schweikert, for 11 ethics violations and fined him $50,000.

Investigators found Schweikert had undisclosed loans and campaign contributions; misused campaign funds for personal purposes; had improper spending in his congressional office; and created an environment where office staffers were pressured to do political work.

Metzendorf said another term for Schweikert could further jeopardize Arizonas economy and reputation in the House.

I am a proud resident of Scottsdale, and the person that represents me in Washington, as painful as it is to say, epitomizes everything that is wrong with the government right now," Metzendorfsaid. "He is unethical and he sits on the sidelines on major issues that affect Arizonans every day."

Metzendorf, who left a decade-long career in professional sports to run, said that bringing change to Arizonas economy is something that has been on his mind for a long time.

His congressional goals will primarily focus on job creation, but he also has plans to tackle environmental and health care issues in the state.

The big rocks of the campaign are going to be the economy,specifically job creation, along with improving accessibility and transparency in health care and preserving our environment for future generations," he said.

We are in a time where if we dont act, I dont know what Arizona will look like for our kids, our grandkids or the future at all. There is a real opportunity here to create good-paying jobs: new jobs that focus around this new emerging sustainability industry, and if Arizona acts now, we will be at the forefront of a larger movement.

While Metzendorf is a Democrat, he emphasizes that he wants to be as inclusive as he can when it comes to policy. He does not view solutions to economic and social issues as partisan.

Sometimes people are going to have preconceived notions about what you are going to say because of party affiliation," he said. "What I really want to make sure people know is that my campaign is not about red and blue.It is about right and wrong.

Redistricting: First look at Arizona redistricting draft maps sparks concern in Tucson, but lines will change

Metzendorf, who spent time during the COVID-19 pandemic last year volunteering for organizations like St. Marys Food Bank and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona, said that his career with the Suns, as well as his personal values, make him uniquely qualified to represent Arizona in Congress.

As director of membership experience, Metzendorf was responsible for the Suns season ticketholder experience, meaning that he was tasked with retaining the fans during the pandemic. He said that he often had to make tough decisions in a quick time frame. Metzendorf took calls from season ticketholders throughout that time. Many of them had dissentingopinions on COVID-19 precautions, such as the Footprint Center's mask mandate, he said.

I have worked with people across the full political spectrum, especially during the pandemic. It was an uncertain time for everybody in Arizona, and the sports world was no different. You had to invest more into it, and listen more and help everywhere you could," he said. "Through the pandemic, I built better relationships with the community, and I led with empathy, integrity and transparency, and these are things I can bring to Washington.

Metzendorf said that being around the Suns players during the pandemic helped inspire him to run.

"They spoke out about what they thought was right, and it takes a great deal of sacrifice to do that, especially when you don't know how people will react," he said. "If they were going to use their platform for that, I felt that I had a right and a duty to do the same."

Metzendorf, who is Jewish and a member of Temple Solel in Paradise Valley, saidthat his desire to help represent the state he lives in comes down to three main things: "faith, family and fairness."

"Faith and family taught me not to sit on the sidelines, and fairness taught me how to see right and wrong instead of red and blue. I want to be fair, and I want to listen, he said.

Metzendorf faces an uphill battle running as a Democrat in one of the most affluent districts in the country. Despite his political baggage, voters returned Schweikert to Congress for a sixth term in 2020.

The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission is redrawing the entire state's congressional district lines, but Metzendorf is confident that he can representwhatever becomes of the 6th district.

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Democrat Adam Metzendorf is running in the 6th Congressional District - The Arizona Republic

Follow the sun. Thats the advice to Democrats from a leading party fundraising organization in an exhaustive analysis of the electoral landscape released today.

The study, from the group Way to Win, provided exclusively to The Atlantic, argues that to solidify their position in Congress and the Electoral College, Democrats must increase their investment and focus on Sun Belt states that have become more politically competitive over recent years as they have grown more urbanized and racially diverse. The majority of new, likely Democratic voters live in the South and Southwest, places the Democratic establishment have long ignored or are just waking up to now, the group argues in the report.

Read: What does the Democratic Party stand for?

The study, focusing on 11 battleground states, is as much a warning as an exhortation. It contends that although the key to contesting Sun Belt states such as North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and Arizona is to sustain engagement among the largely nonwhite infrequent voters who turned out in huge numbers in 2018 and 2020, it also warns that Republicans could consolidate Donald Trumps gains last year among some minority voters, particularly Latino men. These trends across our multiracial coalition demonstrate the urgent need for campaigns and independent groups to stop assuming voters of color will vote Democrat, the report asserts.

The study echoes the findings of other Democratic strategists such as Mike Podhorzer, the longtime political director of the AFL-CIO, in arguing that the Democrats best chance to avoid the usual midterm losses is to turn out large numbers of those surge voters next year.

If all the consultants in the Democratic Party do is follow their same playbook, which is talking only to the most likely voters, or really focusing on white voters or white non-college voters, Democrats will likely lose, says Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, Way to Wins vice president and chief strategy officer. The big message for us is that the core strategy of the 2022 midterm [should be] about engineering and expanding enthusiasm among this high-potential multiracial, multigenerational base that is really a critical part of the electorate across the Sun Belt states.

Way to Win was founded by Fernandez Acona and the Democratic operatives Tory Gavito and Leah Hunt-Hendrix after the 2016 election to channel more funding from Democratic donors into organizations and campaigns that focus on voters of color. Their work, which they say has raised $165 million so far, has centered on Sun Belt states, but has also included investments in diversifying urban and suburban areas in other regions, says Gavito, who now serves as Way to Wins president and CEO. Among the groups Way to Win has funded are grassroots organizations in Georgia and Arizona that are widely credited for the robust minority turnout that helped President Joe Biden flip both of those states last November.

The key analytical insight in the new report is its attempt to quantify the stakes for Democrats in continuing to engage the infrequent voters who flocked to the polls in 2020.

Using an analysis of voter files by the firm TargetSmart, the report studied the 64.8 million voters who cast ballots last year in the 11 states where Way to Win focused its efforts: a Sun Beltheavy list that includes Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida in the Southeast; Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and Texas in the Southwest; and Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania in the Rust Belt.

TargetSmart projects that nearly 41 million of the voters in those states turned out in all three of the most recent elections2016, 2018, and 2020and that those dependable voters split almost exactly in half between Biden and Trump. The firm sees little opportunity for moving those voters through persuasion efforts, writing that they are polarized, deeply entrenched, partisan base voters. Only about one in seven of these habitual voters, TargetSmart concludes, might be genuinely persuadable from election to election.

Instead, the report argues that the Democratic Party has greater opportunity among less reliable voters. Despite Trumps own success at energizing infrequent voters, the study found that in these crucial states, Biden actually generated more support from voters who turn out only occasionally.

Across the 11 states, TargetSmart calculated, nearly 13 million 2020 voters participated in just two of the past three elections, and they preferred Biden 52 percent to 48 percent. Another 11.1 million 2020 voters did not vote in either 2018 or 2016, and they gave Biden an estimated advantage of 54 percent to 46 percent. Looking beyond these infrequent voters, the study found that another nearly 25 million registered adults did not vote in any of the three most recent elections, and they model as more Democratic- than Republican-leaning in all 11 states.

These concentric circles of irregular votersespecially those who have now turned out to oppose Trump or his party in either 2018 or 2020, or bothrepresent the Democrats best chance of expanding their support, and contesting new states, in the years ahead, the report argues. To expand the Democratic base with a durable coalition, the report maintains, all of these infrequent voters must be invited to become more habitual voters who consistently break for Democrats. Democrats cannot afford a scarcity mindset where we only talk to high-frequency persuadable voters in 2022.

David A. Graham: The Democrats greatest delusion

Even as it flags that opportunity, the Way to Win study echoes other Democratic analysts who have seen signs through Bidens first months that Republicans may be preserving the unexpected gains Trump recorded among Latino voters, particularly men, and even (though fewer) Black voters. In some ways this is a clarion call and a warning sign because it means that we need more investment and more work to figure out what is happening in these communities, Gavito says. One lesson thats clear already regarding Latinos, she says, is that emphasizing a traditional Democratic message thats centered on racial justice without delivering improvement in material day-to-day conditions is falling on deaf ears.

The Way to Win report arrives amid another spasm in the perennial Democratic argument over whether the partys future revolves more around the emerging electoral opportunities in the Sun Belt or restoring its strength in Rust Belt states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Iowa that have moved toward the GOP in the Trump era. That geographic argument also functions as a proxy for the partys central demographic debate: whether Democrats should place more priority on recapturing non-college-educated white voters drawn to Trump or on maximizing support and turnout among their more recent coalition of young people, racial minorities, and college-educated white voters, particularly women.

On a national basis, white voters without a college degree for years have been supplying a shrinking share of Democrats total votes, both because those voters are declining as a percentage of the overall electorate (down about two percentage points every four years to roughly 40 percent now) and also because Democrats are winning fewer of them, especially in the Trump years.

But that national trend still leaves room for plenty of regional divergence that, in practice, commits Democrats to relying on both strategies, rather than choosing between them.

In the Rust Belt, party candidates have understandably devoted enormous effort to maintaining support among white voters without a college degree. Thats partly because in these states, minority populations are not growing nearly as quickly as in the Sun Belt, and those blue-collar white voters remain about half the electorate or more. But its also because a history of class consciousness and union activism has allowed Democrats to historically perform slightly better with working-class white voters in these states than elsewhere, even if that ceiling has lowered amid Trumps overt appeals to racial resentment.

In the Sun Belt, non-college-educated white voters are both a smaller share of the electorate and more resistant to Democrats, in part because more of them than in the Rust Belt are evangelical Christians. (Although exit polls showed Biden winning about two in five non-college-educated white voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and even Iowa, he carried only about one in five of them in North Carolina and Georgia and only about one in four in Texas.) Conversely, the opportunity for mobilization is greater in the Sun Beltwhere people of color constitute a majority of the population turning 18 each year in many of the statesthan in the Rust Belt. Given those political and demographic realities, most Democratic campaigns and candidates across the Sun Belt believe their future depends primarily on engaging younger and nonwhite votersand the registration and turnout efforts led by Stacey Abrams in Georgia is the model they hope to emulate.

Fernandez Ancona says Way to Win isnt calling for Democrats to abandon the Rust Belt, or to concede more working-class white voters to the GOP. Rather, she says, the group believes that party donors and campaigns must increase the resources devoted to expansion of the minority electorate so that it more closely matches the greater sums already devoted to the persuasion of mostly white swing voters.

I dont think its expansion versus persuasion: Its that we have to prioritize expansion just as we have historically prioritized persuasion, she says. We saw that in 2020. Its very clear: We needed it all.

Read: Democrats 2024 problem is already clear

In fact, both Fernandez Ancona and Gavito argue, the entire debate over whether to stress recapturing more white voters or mobilizing more nonwhite voters obscures the partys actual challenge: finding ways to unify a coalition that is inherently more multiracial and multigenerational than the Republicans. Even with Trumps gains among some minority voters, white voters still supplied almost 92 percent of his votes across these 11 states, the analysis found. Bidens contrasting coalition was much more diverse: just under 60 percent white and more than 40 percent nonwhite.

Sometimes we are missing the whole and we are not grasping that the multiracial coalition includes white people and people of color, and we have to hold that coalition together, Fernandez Ancona says. Thinking about the whole coalition [means] we have to find messages that unite around a shared vision that includes cross-racial solidarity.

One of those messages, Gavito says, is boosting economically strained families of all races with the kind of kitchen-table programs embedded in the Democrats big budget-reconciliation bill, such as tax credits for children, lower prescription-drug prices, and increased subsidies for health- and child-care expenses. Those programs are very important at this stage, she says, to give Democrats any chance of avoiding the usual midterm losses for the presidents party, thats for damn sure.

On that point, Biden and almost every Democrat in both the House and the Senate agree. But unless they can also persuade Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to pass the bill, debates about the Sun Belt versus the Rust Belt, or white versus nonwhite voters, may be washed away by a tide of disapproval from all of those directions.

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The Democrats Future Is in the West - The Atlantic