Historic benefits in stimulus bill may answer a big question for Democrats

The massive stimulus plan President Joe Biden signed last week sets up a critical real-world test of an argument that has divided political professionals for decades: Can Democrats win back White working-class voters drawn to conservative Republican messages on culture and race by offering them more tangible economic benefits? …

The vast scale of this material assistance to financially strained families of all races will test whether any conceivable set of government economic benefits can loosen the GOP’s hold on working-class Whites — or the modest but measurable gains that Trump recorded in the 2020 race among working-class Hispanics and even some Black voters (especially men in each case).

Working class White voters — usually defined as Whites without four-year college degrees — were the cornerstone of the “New Deal” coalition assembled by Roosevelt, which dominated American politics from 1932 through 1968. But since the mid-1960s, the defection of those blue-collar White voters — heavily concentrated among Catholics in Northern states, evangelical Protestants in Southern states and rural residents in both regions — to the GOP has been a constant source of frustration and anxiety for Democrats. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, CNN


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