Democratic voters have a clear ideological choice in this year’s presidential primaries.
But if there is any lesson from the recent New York Times/Siena College surveys of the six closest states carried by the president, it’s that the Democrats have been presented with a series of choices about how to win back the White House that are not really even distinct choices at all.
It is often posited, for instance, that Democrats face a choice between a moderate who might win back a crucial sliver of white working-class voters who flipped from Barack Obama to Donald Trump, or a progressive who might mobilize a new coalition of young progressives, perhaps especially in the rapidly diversifying Sun Belt states.
But for the most part, these choices are not grounded in the attitudes of the electorate in the most competitive states. Instead, the polls’ results on persuadable and low-turnout voters suggest that the Democratic focus on Obama-to-Trump voters, or on low-turnout progressives, is largely misplaced. CONT.
Nate Cohn, New York Times