Leaning Into State Trends: The Midwest and Interior West

Key Points• Both the Midwest and Interior West have states that Joe Biden carried by less than his popular vote margin in 2020.• In the Midwest, Michigan and Wisconsin will likely be prime battlegrounds states next year, although Michigan seems a harder lift for Republicans.• In the Interior West, Arizona’s […] Read more »

Gretchen Whitmer Rejected False Choices. All Democrats Should.

… For Democrats, much of the debate about running in and winning big northern industrial states is that we have to choose a style of campaign. Either we talk to blue-collar voters about issues like economics and manufacturing, or we talk to suburban women about abortion. Either we use progressive […] Read more »

I Work for Midwestern Democrats, and I Know How to Win Back Voters From the G.O.P.

Democrats continue to bleed support from working-class voters of all races. Many are abandoning the party for the Republicans because they think Democrats are not committed enough to fighting for their livelihood and way of life. To win these voters back, Democrats have got to do more to demonstrate that […] Read more »

Winning Back The Factory Towns That Made Trumpism Possible

… Small and midsized counties with a big manufacturing presence, what we have come to call Factory Towns, are at the heart of a concerted long-term push by the rightwing to fundamentally reshape American politics, and they should be at the heart of a progressive strategy to win a long-term […] Read more »

Democrats Lost the Most in Midwestern ‘Factory Towns,’ Report Says

The share of the Democratic presidential vote in the Midwest declined most precipitously between 2012 and 2020 in counties that experienced the steepest losses in manufacturing and union jobs and saw declines in health care, according to a new report to be released this month. The party’s worsening performance in […] Read more »

Why the Sun Belt may pick the next president

The battleground states across the industrial Midwest have functioned as the decisive tipping point of American politics for at least 30 years, especially in presidential elections. But the latest Census Bureau findings on both overall population growth and voter turnout in 2020 signal that the Sun Belt will increasingly rival, […] Read more »