How Did This Happen? Democrats and Republicans Swap Bases

Steve

Trump has honed in on the ability to switch the narrative and gather working-class voters into the Republican camp - traditionally, working-class voters identified as Democrats while Republicans were identified as the advocates of big business and elites. In 2024, those identities have flipped. Jeff Bloodworth looks at this factor among others, as an explanation of why the 2024 election followed the Trump tide.

Democrats did not see the rising tide. Sam Talarico, chair of the Erie County Democrats, termed himself "somewhat shocked" by Kamala Harris' defeat. His vice chair, Kristy Gnibus, "for sure" thought Harris could win. Both felt the same energy. Harris packed Erie Insurance Arena. Liz Cheney spoke at the largest paid educational program in Erie history. Ultimately, Gnibus, like so many other Democrats, simply believed. "There is no way a person could look at Trump and think, he's good for America."

Voters thought otherwise.

On election day, Jim Wertz, the Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania State Senate District 49, sensed a surge in Erie's crowded voting precincts. He could not divine which way the tide would break. He later told me of Trump's win, "I call it a tide, [because] you can see a wave coming." Whatever its source, Donald Trump's red tide was simply too high for the Democratic seawall. Rolling to 312 Electoral Votes and nearing 50 percent of the popular vote, the Republican improved on his 2020 vote share in 49 states and 90 percent of American counties. In this, Erie delivered once again as a political bellwether.

The county's 1.3 percent swing toward Trump mirrored the Commonwealth's 1.6 percent move to the Republican and his 2 to 3-point gain in the national vote.

But Trump's deepest cut hits Democrats to their core. For generations, voters had identified Democrats as the "party of the working class" and Republicans as the advocates of big business and elites. In 2024, those identities have flipped.

Harris won the college-educated by 14 points. She also took those earning $100,000 or more.

Trump, meanwhile, is the first-ever Republican presidential candidate to win a majority of low-income voters. Trump also took the Republican's highest percentage of Asian voters since 2004, the biggest share of the Black vote since 1976, and the party's second-highest portion of Hispanics ever. Trump's GOP is (gulp) a multi-racial working-class coalition.

More than a victory, Trump stole the Democrats' lunch money by taking the party's very identity.

Powering this coalition are men. Proof of this is both anecdotal and in the data.

Nationally, Trump won the male vote by 10 points — and he did so by luring young, irregular male voters to the polls. Erie's eye popping 75 percent voter turnout included many newly registered men. At my precinct, two scraggly 20-something boys queued behind me and sheepishly asked for help admitting, "we never voted before." Talarico heard similar reports from an array of election workers. Such voters elude psephologists. On election day they emerge and make pollsters, yet again, look foolish. More "Trump" voter than Republican, they cast a ballot for president and often leave everything below blank. In Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin, Trump voters arrived for the main course but ignored the down ballot sides. Trump won the state, but a series of Democratic senators eked to victory.

In the ashes of defeat, Gnibus understands that voters are telling Democrats "We aren't voting for more politicians." The vice chair admits, "She [Harris] is the status quo of what a politician is. They [the voters] want to vote for an anti-establishment candidate." Empathizing with voters, Gnibus sees why so many are "sick of hearing the promises of the Democratic Party" without seeing the results in their daily lives and paychecks.

Lindsey Scott sees the Democrats' woes similarly. The chair of the Crawford County Democratic Party calls Harris and other Democratic candidates "front of the classroom kids with front of the classroom personalities." Scott knows that being the smartest kid in the room "doesn't get you elected." Whenever the smart kids raise their hands, voters groan, "There they go again." Just like high school, Scott believes people prefer "the back of the room" where those "who are part of the jokes [and] rowdiness" slouch.

Donald Trump proved Scott's analogy. Kamala Harris had the policies, the Nobel laureates, and even the Swifties. In September, she defenestrated Trump in a presidential debate. The Republican nominee, by way of contrast, shimmied to a bizarre 39-minute medley of Guns n' Roses and Broadway showtunes. He followed that campaign event with a crude and xenophobic Madison Square Garden rally during which speakers termed Harris "the devil" and Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage." None of it mattered. Harris took the under-30 set and tied Trump with those 65 and older. But Generation X went Trump by 10 points, 54 percent to 44 percent.

In this 21st century Breakfast Club, John Bender steamrolled Claire Standish. The back of the classroom, anti-establishment prevailed over the preps and the plastics.

If life were the John Hughes' film Pretty in Pink, liberals would conceive of themselves as the plucky underdog, Duckie. But Democratic candidate for Colorado state legislature Adam Frisch explained why many middle- to lower-class voters, of all races, see Democrats as Hughes' stuck-up antagonists, Steff and Blane. He made national news in 2022 by nearly unseating Lauren Boebert. In 2024, he came up short in his House race, again.

In driving 77,000 miles across his rural Colorado district, Frisch met many voters. But a 60-something electrician sticks in his mind. Denver and Colorado's ski towns are booming. But northwest Colorado, much like western Pennsylvania, has been rocked by an economy in transition. Adding to this are state regulations pushed by ski-town elites to end all oil and gas drilling. As admirable as this may be, these policies hit hard in counties where 70 percent of GDP is derived from energy production.

Frisch said of his electrician, "He knows there is a climate crisis over the next 20 years, but he has to pay his rent in 20 days." In years past, the electrician made six figures in Colorado's oil and gas industry. Today, he earns one-third that income in his $17-an-hour job at a mom-and-pop motel. Frisch faults "the cultural demagoguery of the high and mighty" for "stripping the guy's dignity." Fuming, he blames the jet-setting Steffs and Blanes "who use five times the energy per capita than the men and women digging it out of the ground" for priming a voter revolt that elected Trump.

Far from blaming Kamala Harris, Frisch told me, "Only in politics is stating the obvious so rare." In July, he made Washington Post headlines by calling for Joe Biden to step down as the Democratic nominee. Ironically, Frisch made a national splash by stating the glaringly evident: Biden was too old. And in this, we see the Democrats' real dilemma and Trumpism's appeal.

Donald Trump freely admits his political larceny. He tells voters that elites are corrupt and then proves it by his own actions. Republican officeholders privately complain but remain silent to safeguard their political future; in this, they affirm Trump's point: elites put themselves first.

In 2022, Democrats had the chance to disprove Trump's populist critique. Voters, according to every survey, begged Biden to step aside. Biden and Democratic leaders incessantly bellowed that Trump represented an existential threat to democracy. Polls showed the president would lose a rematch. If Democratic elites truly believed their words and put the country first, they would have followed Congressman Dean Phillips. The little-known Minnesotan challenged Biden in the primaries. He put the nation above self-interest — and lost his political career. Every other Democratic officeholder in Washington proved Trump correct: self-interest came before country.

Gnibus told me "The people surrounding Biden didn't want to get out [of the White House]. They dragged their feet in favor of careerism. The voters are right not to trust politicians."

Lester Levine, founder of Common Good Governing, sees this as well. He understands that Trump capitalizes on public sentiment that Washington has too many politicians and not enough servant leaders, a concept he defines as "individuals who want to put the real needs of the country ahead of party and/or ideology."

Had Biden stepped aside in 2022, Democratic primary voters could have picked a political lemon. But Democrats would have demonstrated that Trump was wrong. Elites, even presidents, can put the country ahead of self-interest. Ultimately, Trump's brand is a political nihilism that tells every American "go get what's yours, and the hell with everyone else." Tragically, Washington Democrats did just that.

Trump is morally challenged. He is appointing a clown car of bad actors to his Cabinet. But unlike the Democrats in Washington, he is honest about who and what he is.

Gnibus has her interpretation of the 2024 election. She told me, "People are sick of it." They want "an everyday person message not an everyday politician message: a real change agent." That change should start with some honesty. Trump won because Democrats lost their working-class identity and Washington elites value their careers over country. The truth hurts. But it also sets you free.

Jeff Bloodworth is a professor of American political history at Gannon University. You can follow him on Twitter/X @jhueybloodworth or reach him at bloodwor003@gannon.edu