Harris challenges the thinking on the best way to challenge Trump

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/harris-challenges-the-thinking-on-the-best-way-to-challenge-trump/ar-AAAQTGa

The Washington Post
Jennifer Rubin
5/3/19

It is not merely grizzled men in the Democratic Party who think they need a white guy to win. Democratic women, nearly all of whom voted for Hillary Clinton, will say without prompting that they cannot “risk” this election on another woman (as if Republicans would ever say after 2008, “We’d better not nominate any of those white old men again!”). My colleague Dave Weigel has heard it. I’ve heard it. Pollsters I have spoken to have heard it. Democratic operatives, veterans of the Clinton campaign, have heard it — and said it.

Frankly, who will be “electable” in 18 months is rarely apparent to so-called experts, let alone voters. Based on the false sense of security of a white candidate, Democrats in the 2008 cycle would have told you that Barack Obama was less “electable” than Clinton.

The search for a white man stems in large part from the fear of not winning back the white male vote in the Rust Belt, something that Democrats have agonized over since November 2016. But anyone paying attention in 2018 saw that throughout the Upper Midwest and in suburban districts across the country, moderate women racked up victories. The congressional freshman class of 2019 is the most diverse ever.

That’s not to say racism and sexism aren’t huge factors, but the same voters who are not going to vote for an African American were probably not going to vote for a Democrat under any circumstances. Voters who think we are being inundated by a horde of violent immigrants and feel that white men are victims are not persuadable voters.

Surely there are lots of ways to win states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio. Rallying African American voters, turning out young voters and pulling white women away from the GOP would work. It did work in 2018.
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