A failure to communicate with middle class voters is what ultimately doomed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, according to Vice President Joe Biden.
In an interview published Thursday, Biden suggested that his calls for more outreach to middle class voters went unheeded as he campaigned for the Democratic nominee.
“I was trying to be as tactful as I could in making it clear that I thought we constantly made a mistake of not speaking to the fears, aspirations, concerns of middle class people,” Biden told the Los Angeles Times.
He added, “you didn’t hear a word about that husband and wife working, making $100,000 a year, two kids, struggling and scared to death. They used to be our constituency.”
Biden said he believes “that we were not letting an awful lot of people — high school-educated, mostly Caucasian, but also people of color — know that we understood their problems.” A dose of elitism “crept in” to the Democratic Party, which Biden said he is concerned makes the progressive wing of the party seem unconcerned with issues pertaining to the working-class.
Biden may not have been the only ally of Clinton unsuccessfully urging her campaign to change its tune in order to win over white working-class voters in the South and the Rust Belt who went for Donald Trump in the election.
Former President Bill Clinton reportedly warned his wife’s campaign that they needed to address the working-class and white rural frustrations immediately, but “his advice fell on deaf ears,” according to the New York Times.
