At Searchlight, we’ve taken to calling this the “doomsday” chart. The news doesn’t start off great—with voters indicating they don’t believe Democrats want any of the things we offered as common topics of everyday life. It gets worse when voters are asked which party cares more about their ability to retire.
To those of the liberal persuasion, the Republican advantage here should be chilling.
Democrats are the party of Social Security. Democrats are the party of Medicare.
Democrats have made the protection of both programs mainstays of their platform for as long as most of us can remember.
The outlook gets worse and worse for Democrats the further down the list you travel. The picture that’s painted is one in which voters increasingly see Republicans as the party best suited to helping them build lives of material prosperity and personal achievement.
When a voter is unconvinced that a political party wants “good” things for them, even the best crafted policies or messages quickly run up against a hard brick wall of resistance.
Taken together with our previous research that showed Democrats being perceived as out of step on the issues voters prioritize, you quickly see a massive problem for Democrats as they cast about for what to do next.
This data doesn’t mean that Democrats should abandon their values or suddenly jettison parts of their coalition. (It should be noted that Republicans have issues of their own in this regard.) But it does present Democrats with an opportunity to think creatively about how they convey their policy priorities.
This is a dynamic moment. There’s a real chance for Democrats to embrace new policy solutions around reforming the social safety net, providing more upward mobility for people, and supporting the everyday aspirations of Americans. Political leaders should look for opportunities to listen to what voters are prioritizing instead of pitching them on the same ideas they’ve heard cycle after cycle.
The doomsday scenario doesn’t have to be a permanent reality, but it will require Democrats to cast aside rigidity and get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
To explore the survey’s full dataset, read our write-up and check out the toplines and crosstabs.
True, not everyone is familiar with quadrant scatter plot charts ;) but Dems should start to speak more about the lower quadrant issues if they want to get centrist and pull a few repub votes as well. Crime, immigration and poverty. Crime = be tough, but stop the militarization of our community police. Immigration = secure the border, but honor the 3rd, 4th, 5th amendments. Poverty = No cash handouts rather create a modern WPA effort to train in construction skills (carpenter, plumber, electrician, HVAC, etc.) and to use those skills in a national home building program to create affordable housing (marketable, good paying skills + affordable housing = reduction in poverty).
We must appeal to more voters by backing off unpopular issues. That means uncomfortable decisions.