Thread by @julieroginsky

Now that this election is in the bag, let me discuss something I think Dems might benefit from:
In 2015, before Trump rode down the golden escalator, a client of mine grew concerned that Dems were losing races in towns where the party had an outsized voter advantage.

These towns were largely white, so this thread applies largely to this cohort. (AA women delivered for the Dems -- AGAIN -- in ways that white people never have in my lifetime. And we need to dispel the notion that Latinos are a monolith, but that's a thread for another day.)

Polling could not explain the phenomenon of why Dems were not winning there. So we did focus groups. Lots and lots of focus groups. And here is what we heard from these Dem and Dem-leaning independents, especially women:

"Yes, we are Dems but you guys spend an awful lot of time focusing on gun safety." (The gun safety message really popped in polling that year). "And while we are all for gun safety, we are drowning here."

"How do we pay for our kids to go to college, pay our taxes and pay for our elderly parents to get the care they need? It's too expensive to live our life every day. And little Timmy needs new turf shoes for soccer."

They actually cared about what the S&P rating was for their local municipalities and counties because they viewed it as an impartial metric of fiscal responsibility. So we reframed the messaging for the next election to focus on fiscal responsibility and we started winning.

These people were not MAGA voters and they weren't woke voters. They cared about social justice issues but they weren't visceral about them because didn't have time to focus on them. They were too worried about making ends meet every day for their families.

Since then, I have sat in many focus groups with this same cohort. The message hasn't changed. They hate Trump's rhetoric but it is not the defining thing. They will absorb socially unacceptable rhetoric if they feel someone is listening to their pleas for help to get by.

These people don't have time to focus on politics the way many of us do. They are just trying to get by day to day, which is tough. The Democratic Party needs to acknowledge this and stop listening to the loudest voices in the room. Start listening to these people instead.

Because these people aren't loud. They won't give you their opinion unless you ask. And when they do, they whisper, they don't yell. And yet their message was loud and clear at the ballot box on Tuesday.