A New York Times columnist outlined the ways in which race and “white guilt” are playing a role in the 2020 Democratic primary.
In a Sunday op-ed for the publication, Astead W. Herndon argued that white liberals are “thinking more explicitly about race than they did even a decade ago,” pointing to recent research that shows white Americans becoming more “woke” on racial issues. Because of the shift, he said candidates in the Democratic primary “have an incentive to talk to white voters explicitly about race.”
“For years, prospective Democratic nominees came to Iowa to talk ethanol and pork subsidies and saved any rhetoric about the injustice of racial profiling for crowds in South Carolina and Nevada,” he wrote. “But in the era of Mr. Trump … it’s white Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire — not black ones in South Carolina — who, to this point, are embracing the candidates who promise to upend society in the name of racial equity.”
Herndon explained that while former Vice President Joe Biden has “held a commanding lead in national polls with nonwhite Democrats,” white liberals have been more inclined to support candidates who are pushing “policies addressing racial inequalities.” For example, white Democrat Julie Neff, 57, who started paying attention to race issues when her daughter got engaged to an Asian man, now calls diversity “very important to me.”
“I should’ve been paying attention to this stuff sooner. But when Trump is making these decisions, I just realized it would be bad for my son-in-law and my grandchildren,” she told Herndon.
Herndon also pointed to research by Georgia State University doctoral student Zach Goldberg finding that Trump’s presidency, combined with the digital age, has “pushed white liberals into adopting new positions” and to attempt to “be the exact opposite of racist.”
“They go adopt positions to prove they’re different than the morally tainted collective,” he said.
However, Herndon and Goldberg noted that the strategy of appealing to white liberals in early voting states could backfire, as voters in the general election “do not share the liberal views about race that white Democrats do.”
“When you think about it, this is why blacks may be supporting Biden the way they do,” Goldberg said. “They know this may not sell to the rest of white America come general election time.”
Touching on former President Barack Obama’s 2008 “playbook” of winning over white voters in Iowa and New Hampshire before locking down the support of minority voters in other states, Herndon said similar efforts by 2020 candidates may be ignoring the fact that many black voters are “fueled by their pragmatic desire to see Mr. Trump replaced.”
“Black voters are sticking with Mr. Biden not because they are unaware of his past, but because they see defeating Mr. Trump as an urgent priority,” he said.
Twelve of the current contenders for the Democratic nomination will go head-to-head in the party’s next debate on Oct. 15.
