Here's the deal with voters and policy. Voters don't pay a lot of attention to policy, but they might like ideas. In isolation, without much detail for baggage (this is what hobbled E. Warren). The cohort of Republicans, perhaps up to half, who are socially-conservative but fiscally-liberal can stomach incremental fiscal liberalism, or even incremental social liberalism, detached from candidates and parties. And some causes are more normalized than ever. They've gotten used to the periodic need to increase the minimum wage. The old standbys of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are popular among them. They can accept gay marriage by now.

But they have decisively associated the Democratic Party with effeminate, contemptuous, eggheads who are trying to put lazy welfare blacks, illegal immigrants, uppity women, and disgusting in-your-face queers up over them (who are the normal, the primary, members of society). They will almost never vote for Democrats as long as an issue that speaks to this anxiety over unfair subordination is salient in an election. Even if the Democratic Party or candidates could manufacture a fantastical alignment with the deepest-held policy preferences of this cohort, the Dem(s) would struggle to attract their votes. It's a matter of longstanding perception and propaganda as well as largely-unconscious psychology and bias.

Once we have a grip on what the case is we can unwishfully think about how to get around it.

Quote Originally Posted by Hooahguy View Post
Are you insinuating that the voters who for decades voted for a Black man for congress would all of a sudden reject a Black woman? Im not saying that its not an accomplishment to be the first Black woman ever to be elected to Congress in Missouri, but the election wasn't exactly close to begin with. But now lets take Kara Eastman, a progressive, in Nebraska's 2nd District. She lost her race but Biden won her district, which netted a valuable electoral college vote.
Eastman underperformed by 3 points relative to 2018. Let's spare a thought for moderate after moderate sinking by 10, 20 points.

Well considering that Bernie got utterly shellacked in places like Michigan and Wisconsin during the primary, I think we do know how it would have gone.
It is a fair point that Biden had higher actual support among Democrats, but that was a distinct context and the 2020 environment was almost tailor-made for testing the Sandersite theory of politics: Dem vs. Repub rather than Dem vs. Dem. It would be nice to have a test of what kind of tradeoffs really could occur between moderates and economic conservatives, and social conservatives (though I'm equally pessimistic).

It is a kind of lower standard for Biden; a Sanders-like candidate performing exactly like Biden has would not be strenuously defended by modal Democrats in these discussions. Boy, a Sanders Pyrrhic victory (which is what 2020 has been) would be treated by the media as discrediting the left flank for a decade. So yeah, there's a bias independent of performance.

Quote Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai View Post
To clarify...the more important part (for me) was that she ran a grassroots primary campaign against a corporate Democrat whose family was basically the Godfather of politics in that district.
And I'm pretty sure they endorsed her Republican opponent...

Speaking of Missouri, it appears Missouri and Kansas have the same exact presidential margins. How poetic.