Dems had an 'economic populist message' but voters were 'utterly indifferent': columnist

08 November 2024

An emerging consensus about the 2024 election is that Vice President Kamala Harris lost working class voters to President-elect Donald Trump because he had better messaging about economic issues. But one columnist is arguing that consensus is wrong.

In a recent op-ed for MSNBC, columnist Michael A. Cohen (not Trump's former lawyer) wrote that Democrats actually had the wind at their backs when it came to the economy. He noted that President Joe Biden added 16 million jobs during his tenure, oversaw a significant increase in real (inflation-adjusted) wages, got inflation back down to 2018 levels, and cancelled more than $175 billion in federal student debt.

Additionally, the Biden-Harris administration passed several historic bills into law that were immensely beneficial to the economy, like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (which spent more than $1 trillion on improving roads, bridges, airports and expanding rural broadband internet access), the CHIPS and Science Act (which created roughly 115,000 new manufacturing jobs in the semiconductor industry) and the Inflation Reduction Act (which made billions of dollars in investments in the renewable energy sector). Cohen opined that this should have made Democrats the obvious choice for voters who said they were motivated by economic issues, even though voters were ultimately unmoved.

"Biden’s record and the disparity in the two candidates’ economic messages didn’t increase the party’s support among working-class voters (which are defined here as those without a college degree)," he wrote. "In short, under Biden, Democrats adopted one of the most pro-working class policy agendas in recent political memory, enacted much of it — and accrued no electoral benefit."

Cohen also addressed the arguments that Democrats weren't messaging enough on economic policy. He pointed out that the Harris campaign "poured $200 million into ads that focused on her economic message" and that she actually "outspent the Trump campaign by around $70 million on ads about the economy."

"What was the content of these ads? Calls to end corporate price gouging, lower housing costs, cut middle-class taxes and protect Social Security and Medicare. Other Harris ads accused Trump of only looking out for his billionaire pals and corporations and attacked him for enacting tax cuts that were primarily directed at the wealthiest Americans," he continued. "This is the definition of an economic populist message."

Nevertheless, Democrats fell short among working-class voters across multiple racial demographics. This was particularly true among the non-white working class, where she performed 16 points worse than Biden in 2020 and 26 points worse than former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016. Cohen's rationale was that Trump's victory came not from his own economic agenda — which he characterized as tariffs that would raise prices on consumer goods and tax cuts that would primarily benefit the richest Americans — but from his ability to scapegoat undocumented immigrants for Americans' problems.

"As in 2016, Trump served as a political voice channeling the fears, cultural grievances and resentments of working-class Americans — and, as has been the case for much of the past 60 years for Republicans, it worked," he wrote. "Of course, it’s not just Trump. The GOP’s attention to the white working class is overwhelmingly symbolic. They offer nothing substantive on policy. They oppose expanding health care access or raising the minimum wage."

Cohen pointed out that in the ruby-red state of Missouri, progressive economic policies were incredibly popular with voters in the Show Me State. Not only did a ballot question on abortion rights succeed by a 58-42 margin, but a referendum on paid sick leave and raising the minimum wage also passed with a comfortable margin. Still, only 40% of voters cast their ballot for Harris, who backed those policies, while the rest voted for Trump, who has openly opposed those ideas.

"Democrats are a party of 'doing stuff' with an electorate utterly indifferent to the stuff they do," Cohen wrote.

Click here to read Cohen's full column on MSNBC.

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