Democrats are seeking a course correction in the suburbs ahead of November’s midterms as recent elections show the voting bloc beginning to trend Republican.
Suburban voters helped boost Democrats during the 2018 midterms in what was seen as a rebuke of then-President Trump. That rebuke continued in 2020, as the group proved valuable to President Biden’s victory, as well as Democratic wins down the ballot.
But last year’s elections in Virginia and New Jersey saw Republicans make gains with the demographic, thanks in part to mounting frustration with rising prices, coronavirus restrictions and education-related issues.
Republicans are working to again pin the blame for those frustrations on Democrats ahead of November. Democrats, meanwhile, are working to persuade suburban voters they can be trusted with the issues voters care about most.
Polling shows Democrats have their work cut out for them. A Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey released last month showed that 57 percent of suburban voters said they are more likely to vote for a Republican candidate in the midterms, while 43 percent said they would be more likely to vote for a Democratic candidate.
Meanwhile, a Reuters-Ipsos poll released last month showed Biden losing ground with the suburban voters who helped elect him in 2020. Only 41 percent of suburban voters said they approved of the job the president was doing.
“The reality of these midterms is they’re going to be difficult for Democrats as they sort of historically are for the party in power in Washington,” said Heather Williams, executive director at the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D), who also serves as the vide chair of the Democratic Governors Association and who won reelection in 2021 by a far narrower margin than expected, conducted a series of focus groups in the Garden State to further understand why constituents were exhibiting signs of discontent. The New York Times reported last week that the governor’s advisers found widespread frustrations pertaining to public health measures.
In recent weeks Democratic governors in California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California, Oregon, Rhode Island, Illinois and Delaware have made the decision to lift their mask mandates, despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advising Americans to mask up in high-transmission areas. Their argument that decisions on masking should be left up to individual states and cities at this point in the pandemic is a far cry from Democrats’ previous stance on the issue — but one more and more Americans are getting behind.
“It’s kind of a combination of recognizing that sort of exhaustion and then recognizing where we are in this pandemic, how it is moving into an endemic, and making choices that fit that moment,” one Democratic operative told The Hill.
Democrats are also working to move past a slew of negative economic headlines, acknowledging the pain of rising consumer prices while pointing to Democratic measures they say have contributed to an overall strong economic recovery.
Party operatives tout the Democratic passage of and GOP opposition last year to Biden’s American Rescue Plan that was aimed at reinvigorating the country’s economy amid the pandemic. More recently, Democrats have pointed to legislation introduced by Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who are both facing closely watched reelection bids, that would get rid of the federal gas tax for the rest of the year. Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who are also facing tough reelection bids, are co-sponsors. The White House is said to be considering the idea.
“We’re putting forth proposals that will put more money in the pockets of Americans,” said one Democratic strategist. “Proposals that are going to lower costs and proposals that will create jobs.”
Democrats say they hope to use the same economic strategy with their entire coalition of voters in the lead up to November.
“Senate Democrats are fighting to address working families’ most pressing priorities – lowering costs, putting more money in Americans’ pockets, and cracking down on big corporations that are getting rich by raising prices on consumers,” said David Bergstein, communications director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Voters will hold GOP Senate candidates accountable for opposing these popular policies, and for pushing the interests of the ultra-wealthy at the expense of working Americans.”
Education is another issue expected to loom heavily over suburban voters as they make their way to the polls in November. Although it is an issue that will impact federal and state-level races differently, Republicans across the board have taken a page out of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) playbook on the issue.
Last year, Youngkin successfully focused heavily on education-related issues, particularly parents’ role in school curricula. Republicans have continued to use the issue to hit their Democratic counterparts, pointing to the party’s ties to teachers unions and coronavirus restrictions staying in place in the classroom despite being lifted elsewhere.
But Democrats say their candidates should run on what they tout as the party’s record of pouring funds into the classroom.
“For our races, it’s just a matter of reminding voters that when they think of a stronger education system, they should be thinking about a Democratic governor in office,” the operative said. “The pandemic was especially hard on parents and especially hard on students and recognizing those frustrations in making sure that parents feel heard, that they’ve got a voice in the classroom and the students have every tool and resource they need to catch if they feel they have fallen behind.”
Williams pointed to Virginia Del. Wendy Gooditis (D), who defeated Republican Nick Clemente in Loudoun County, ground zero for the education debate, as an example of how Democrats can message on the issue at the state level.
“Wendy Gooditis won reelection in Loudoun County by talking about her record on education, and she ultimately ended up outperforming the top of the ticket,” Williams said.
As for Republicans taking a page out of Youngkin’s playbook, Democrats say that will be an uphill task for GOP candidates in 2022.
“He was a unique candidate,” the operative said. “He was pretty unknown. He had all the money in the world that he could go on TV and define himself.”
Democrats also say Youngkin’s strategy of keeping Trump at arm’s length won’t necessarily work in races this year, pointing out that a number of Republican House, Senate and gubernatorial races have contentious primaries where candidates are working to appeal to what is often a pro-Trump conservative base.
“There’s no Glenn Youngkin on the field,” said the Democratic strategist. “And what I think is really, really important to note is that Glenn Youngkin didn’t have a primary. He was elected through a convention.”
Youngkin’s opponent, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), made what many strategists say was a mistake in constantly tying Youngkin to the former president. This time around, Democrats say they plan to be laser-focused on kitchen table issues like the economy, education, and coronavirus restrictions instead of the former president — but they acknowledge invoking Trump could have its place.
Democrats they will talk about “Republican extremism” if an opposing candidate touts conspiracy theories surrounding the election, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol or efforts to repeal Roe v. Wade.
“It’s a conscious decision to talk about what voters want to hear about, and if a contrast needs to be drawn, then that makes all the difference in the world,” the Democratic operative said.