President Joe Biden‘s State of the Union address underscored his return to populist politics before a likely 2024 reelection campaign, making overtures to “blue-collar” people who once supported Democrats but now back Republicans.
The rhetoric, which echoes both his and former President Donald Trump‘s campaign messages, coincides with concerns Democrats are continuing to slide among white voters without a college degree and whether that will have electoral consequences next year.
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The trend of blue-collar people supporting Republicans preceded Trump but was “significantly accelerated” by his 2016 campaign, according to University of Akron Applied Politics Program Director David B. Cohen.
“Republicans have done an excellent job using anger over the loss of manufacturing jobs and trade deals — which were pushed hard by the GOP starting with [former President Ronald] Reagan, by the way — along with culture war issues, to split many of these working-class voters from their historical connection to the Democratic Party,” he told the Washington Examiner.
Republicans had a 34 percentage point advantage over Democrats among white voters without a college degree last year, a 10-point improvement compared to 2018, according to exit polls. That edge decreased slightly for Trump, but he still outperformed 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton among the demographic by 37 points and Biden by 35 points.
It is “possible” for Democrats to stop perpetuating their “coastal elite” stereotype in a state like Ohio, Cohen said, but it will be “a long and difficult road” requiring “high quality, centrist” candidates who can be pitched to people living in increasingly gerrymandered districts. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), for instance, has notched success in Cohen’s home state, which Trump defended in 2020 by 8 points. Brown is up for reelection next year.
“Much of it involves educating these voters about Biden’s and the Democratic Party’s efforts at getting major pieces of legislation through Congress and signed into law, such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the CHIPS [and Science] Act,” Cohen added. “Communication — especially communication about wins — has not been the strong suit of this White House or Democrats writ large.”
Coincidentally, an ABC News-Washington Post poll published this week found 62% believe Biden has achieved “not very much” or “little or nothing” so far during his administration. A Morning Consult-Politico poll from October 2021 identified a similar, more specific finding: that fewer than half of respondents credit Democrats and almost two-fifths Biden for the more generous child tax credit they introduced through their $1.9 trillion coronavirus spending package.
One senior Democratic official declined to concede the party no longer appeals to blue-collar people, particularly since former President Barack Obama, focusing instead on how Biden’s working-class background is “core” to him.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a return as much as it’s a consistent theme that sometimes can be lost in a lot of other very pressing issues,” they said, “but it’s also Republicans who are presenting an agenda that gives us a very good foil. When they’re siding with the Chinese Communist Party on blocking American jobs from coming back to the United States of America, that gives us a very good, potent message.”
Biden reiterated his “Blue-Collar Blueprint” during this year’s State of the Union address, his first to a Republican-controlled House and a chamber of raucous lawmakers who routinely interrupted him.
“Folks, my economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten,” he said Tuesday. “This is, in my view, a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America and make a real difference in your lives at home.”
Biden first used the phrase before his address to a joint session of Congress in 2021, but he has returned to it with greater frequency in recent weeks amid speculation he is preparing to announce a reelection campaign.
“Folks, too many people have been left behind in the past, and too many people, like my dad — well, too many people were treated like they were invisible,” he said last month in Virginia during remarks on the economy. “Isn’t it kind of interesting why all of a sudden, it hadn’t been with my case, but all of a sudden, blue-collar workers, all the guys I grew up with in Claymont, [Delaware] and Scranton, [Pennsylvania] — they vote Republican? Not a joke. What’s happened? I think a lot are because they don’t think we care, we’re not paying attention.”
“This a blue-collar blue change we’re seeing,” he added Wednesday in Wisconsin, the first of his post-State of the Union trips.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) additionally amplified the “Blue-Collar Blueprint” on Tuesday before the State of the Union, describing Biden as a “blue-collar,” “pro-union,” “pro-middle-class president.”
During the State of the Union address, Biden, too, repeatedly referred to getting the “job done.” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not comment on whether that was a prelude to a reelection campaign launch.
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“What I can do is repeat what the president has said over and over again: is that he intends to run in 2024,” she said on Air Force One en route to Wisconsin. “In the meantime, he’s going to continue the way that he sees it, continue to deliver for the American people, continue to make sure that there’s economic growth and progress with the American people.”
