Democratic Report Raises 2022 Alarms on Messaging and Voter Outreach

[brooklynite]

Source: New York Times

Democrats defeated President Donald J. Trump and captured the Senate last year with a racially diverse coalition that delivered victories by tiny margins in key states like Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin.

In the next election, they cannot count on repeating that feat, a new report warns.

A review of the 2020 election, conducted by several prominent Democratic advocacy groups, has concluded that the party is at risk of losing ground with Black, Hispanic and Asian American voters unless it does a better job presenting an economic agenda and countering Republican efforts to spread misinformation and tie all Democratic candidates to the far left.

The 73-page report, obtained by The New York Times, was assembled at the behest of three major Democratic interest groups: Third Way, a centrist think tank, and the Collective PAC and the Latino Victory Fund, which promote Black and Hispanic candidates. It appears to be the most thorough act of self-criticism carried out by Democrats or Republicans after the last campaign.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/politics/democrats-2020-election.html

[calguy]

1. They're not wrong

The democrats must constantly work on upping their game when it comes to presenting a unified message. In the past, when we failed to do this, we lost elections. Can't afford to that this time.

[notpolltested]

2. We can start with nominating candidates who will relentlessly go on the attack

against the GOP first so the debate is on our terms not theirs. They must be able to quickly turn around any GOP attacks. E.g. If they accuse us of wanting to defund the police, then we counter that Republicans are defunding the police by voting against the American Rescue Plan which had billions in funding for local police departments. Or that when American demanded justice against those who harmed our Capitol Police officers, the House and Senate Republicans were complicit in blocking a non-partisan investigation.

That candidate must clearly communicate why the Democratic party is a better bet and why Republican policies have failed over the past 30 years. No more weak-sauce candidates like Bill Nelson who waited months after getting pounded by Rick Scott to counter with any Ads.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. We need to boost ideology

It's not enough to say Republicans have tax cuts for the rich. We don't attack well. GOP is the party of privilege, of restricting opportunity to themselves, of limiting benefits to people like them, of limiting the benefits of society to those who can pay cash. And now GOP are the party of fascism, voting only for themselves and their ilk, of oppression against women, minorities, the poor.

We have to bring our agenda without apologies. It's not enough to try to sneak into office so we can slip through a few liberal ideas. We must be bold instead of cowed. We must make broad and big ideas our purpose, instead of focusing on race and LGBTQ as the primary issue of fairness.

It's a problem with messaging, and how that messaging is packaged to all parts of the political spectrum. We must even include moderate Republicans who embrace opportunity, freedom, civil rights instead of what the GOP now stands for.

[Elessar Zappa]

4. Kinda hard

for Dems to deliver for people when Manchin and Sinema are blocking the way. If

[nycbos]

5. They are not wrong.

The defund the police narrative hurt us.

Polls show that even people of color overwhelming oppose "defunding the police"

[ForgoTheConsequence]

14. Defund the police wasn't a Democratic Party narrative.

Having Democrats against Federal voting rights protections on the other hand will hurt.

[nycbos]

15. No but..

...people like AOC, Talib, supported it.

One thing Democrats haven't learned is we always assume people will know the truth. We say the truth once or twice and Republicans lie until the lie is excepted it as fact.

The data shows many people believed the narrative. Which is why Biden outperformed Democrats down ballot.

It is the reason why we can't get anything done on voting rights because we want Senate races that we thought we would win.


To say the defund the police BS did hurt us would be denying facts.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

16. Bullshit.

That's a right-wing Facebook narrative. But please, blame two women of color for ruining it for Democrats down-ballot and not the wealthy white Senators against protecting voting rights. Hard to get people to the polls when they're not allowed to vote...

[nycbos]

19. I can't stand the white trash, cracker, redneck from West Virginia.

This is what Jim Clyburn says. I'll take his word over AOC's any day of the week. He is the reason we have a Democrat in the White House. If it was up to AOC we would've had Sanders as the nominee who would've been demolished by Trump and we might have lost our democracy.

Val Demings doesn't talk about defunding the police, neither does Clyburn, neither does Hakeem Jeffries, neither does Ritchie Torres.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214504861

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10599744

[heckles65]

6. What far left?

5,000 members of the CP/USA, you'd think it was fifty million.

[SunSeeker]

11. Well that's because Republicans are very good at spreading misinformation.

They have Putin's help too.

We really need to up our game at combating GOP misinformation.

[nycbos]

12. The defund the police narrative hurt us.

There are those who portray it as a "social justice issue" but polling a shown that an overwhelming majority of people of color oppose it and that it hurt us in 2020. Biden outperform many downed ballot Democrats.

Even though no Democrats of substance supported it a few Dems talked about it and the GOP used it to some success to vilify our candidates.

[DownriverDem]

7. The problem is

that we have to appeal to more voters than the far left.

[Lonestarblue]

8. Democrats have never done a good job of presenting their economic message.

When you look at past Democratic administrations, statistics show more job gains, better stock market performance, and more programs that actually make a difference in people’s lives, but Republicans have been successful in hanging the label of tax-and-spend Democrats around our necks. They have also falsely claimed that Democrats run up the deficit when it is actually Republicans who do that and then it continues to increase under Democrats because of the increased interest from the deficit Republicans added. Republicans have pushed the falsehood that tax cuts for the wealthy create jobs for decades with no such results, yet voters continue to believe the lie. Their propaganda machine has been in overdrive for years, and the lies are just getting worse.

That said, clear Democratic messaging is really essential, along with choosing a few key topics and hammering them repeatedly. If my emails are any indication, there are so many Democratic groups and PACs out there raising money on dozens of different claims and concerns that it’s hard to know what is really important. It’s all take this poll, send money, Democrats going down, send money, do you support Biden, send money, and on and on—mostly organizations I’ve never heard of but become annoyed at because they send multiple emails per day. I only donate directly to candidates these days because I at least know who they are.

[everyonematters]

9. The Kitchen table isues - jobs, healthcare, education - pound it.

[SunSeeker]

10. Exactly. We help the poor and class and Republicans hurt them, simple as that. nt

[airmid]

13. I will never understand how anyone can vote for the GOP or sit on their

hands and allow them to complete their plan to destroy this country.

[I of the Eye]

17. The Republicans will Block Everything They Can

And then hypocritically run against the "Do-Nothing Democrats" next year.

[aocommunalpunch]

18. LMAO

Run away from the "far left"! There's someplace to hide where the Republicans won't lie about you! We promise! Keep running! You're almost there!

[SamsDrink]

20. Without HR 1

The Republicans will be rewarded in their ongoing efforts to rig elections.

[SpankMe]

21. The most disturbing phrase of the article is:

"...the party is at risk of losing ground with Black, Hispanic and Asian American voters."

For fuck's sake - why? With everything the Republican party has become, with the policies they've promoted and implemented into law, as unhinged as they've become in the last decade or so, I cannot imagine Democrats "losing ground" with these groups and interests. To who? Republicans?

Even if the Democratic platform and policy trajectories have one or two things that that don't fall in line with the more narrow interests of the various coalitions we're trying to serve, I don't see any of those one-offs being seriously deficient enough to move support away form Dems in favor of Repubs.

And saying we "hurt ourselves" with defund the police and AOC's socialism...really? Socialism and hyperbole on police reform are going to lose us support while literal insurrection, overt white supremacy, obvious voter suppression, gun worship, extreme anti-LGBT laws that threaten real freedom for some - these things don't risk driving people away from Republicans? Jesus fuck!

This imbalance is extremely disturbing to me. Republicans are characterizing the January 6th insurrection as nothing more than rowdy tourist visit and citizens conveying a political message. But one of our guys breaks a window on a cop car in a BLM protest in Oregon last summer - and we're the side that's alienating potential voters and threatening America.

Fuck that. Fuck that and your don't-tread-on-me flag.

[Deminpenn]

22. That this report was co-sponsored by "The Third Way"

is a dead giveaway it's meant to try and drag Dems back to the center/right.