A relatively new term is popping up in articles on 2024 strategy for Democrats that I explained and explored at New York:
When you have a presidential candidate who is struggling to generate enthusiasm in the party base, it’s natural to look for some external stimulation. In the case of Joe Biden, the most obvious source of a 2024 boost is the deep antipathy that nearly all Democrats, many independents, and even a sizable sliver of Republicans feel toward Donald Trump. But in case that’s not enough, Team Biden is looking at another avenue of opportunity, albeit a risky one: the possibility of “reverse coattails” taking him past Trump on a wave of turnout that incidentally benefits the president of the United States.
That’s not the conventional wisdom, as the term reverse coattails makes clear: Normally, it’s the head of the ticket from whom all blessings flow, which makes sense insofar as presidential-election turnout dwarfs that of off-year and midterm contests in no small part because people who don’t necessarily care about the identity of their senator or governor are galvanized by the battle for the White House. But as Russell Berman of The Atlantic explains, this year is different:
“Faith in the reverse-coattails effect is fueling Democratic investments in down-ballot races and referenda. In North Carolina, for example, party officials hope that a favorable matchup in the governor’s race — Democratic attorney general Josh Stein is facing Republican lieutenant governor Mark Robinson, who has referred to homosexuality as ‘filth’ and compared abortion to slavery — could help Biden carry a state that Trump narrowly won twice. Democrats are also trying to break a Republican supermajority in the legislature, where they are contesting nearly all 170 districts. ‘The bottom of the ticket is absolutely driving engagement and will for all levels of the ballot,’ Heather Williams, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, told me.”
In other states, high-profile ballot measures, particularly those aimed at restoring the abortion rights denied by conservative courts and Republican lawmakers, may generate bottoms-up enthusiasm benefiting Biden and embattled Democratic Senate candidates as well:
“In key states across the country, Democrats and their allies are planting ballot initiatives both to protect reproductive rights where they are under threat and to turn out voters in presidential and congressional battlegrounds. They’ve already placed an abortion measure on the ballot in Florida, where the state supreme court upheld one of the nation’s most restrictive bans on the procedure, and they plan to in Arizona, whose highest court recently ruled that the state could enforce an abortion ban first enacted during the Civil War. Democrats are also collecting signatures for abortion-rights measures in Montana, home to a marquee Senate race, and in Nevada, a presidential swing state that has a competitive Senate matchup this year.”
Berman notes that the reverse-coattails strategy is unproven. Voters, for example, who attracted to the polls by abortion ballot measures don’t always follow the partisan implications of their votes when it comes to candidate preferences. Red-hot down-ballot races are probably more reliable in attracting voters who can be expected to follow the party line to the top of the ticket. A positive precedent can be found in Georgia’s coordinated effort of 2020, when a powerful campaign infrastructure built by Democratic Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock clearly helped maximize Biden’s vote; the 46th president won the state by less than 12,000. Perhaps a strong Senate candidate like Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey could help Biden survive as well. As for the possible effect of ballot measures, it was once generally accepted that in 2004 a GOP strategy of encouraging anti-same-sex-marriage ballot measures helped boost conservative turnout in battleground states like Ohio, enabling George W. Bush’s narrow victory (though there are analysts who argue against that hypothesis). One reason it may work better today is the increasing prevalence of straight-ticket voting and the heavy emphasis of Democratic campaigns up and down the ballot on the kind of support for abortion rights that should help them take advantage of ballot-measure-generated turnout.
We won’t get a good idea of how either reverse-coattails strategy is working until late in the 2024 campaign when it becomes possible to measure new voter registrations, screen registered voters for their likelihood to participate in the election, and assess states where down-ballot contests are turning into a Democratic blowout. Team Biden would be wise to do everything in its power to lift the president’s popularity and build a favorability advantage over Trump that can reduce the number of “double haters” likely to stay home or vote for a change in the party management of Washington.
Interesting but isn’t this kind of information supposed to be useful so it can establish what we all can agree on or even where there aren’t absolute disagreements? I think it also helps to show where Republicans and R leaners aren’t exactly on the same page and that’s at least some of what Democrats should be emphasizing when talking to people who tend to vote Republican.
Because it seems that Democrats talk to people that don’t vote for them about what they think they should care about rather than what they do.
And don’t Republicans focus on what their voters are currently united on? From this poll, you can see support for the wall as well as views on size of government are there for Republicans and R leaners so they obsess over that. They don’t give as much attention to what they’re divided on (because thats what Democrats are supposed to do) which is also probably why we don’t hear about a lot of things we used to hear them carry on about before.
I wish this poll like this would’ve included questions about Foreign Policy and our relationship with allies, wars for terrorism, right wing terrorism, law enforcement, security, public schools. What’s important to people from any political party doesn’t change because of whats trending being something else and also I think you’ll find more division within the Republicans and leaners there.(getting tired of that word)
There has to be some effort to address white identity politics for many reasons but I’m mentioning it for this post because the Gop is using it as a way to infer Democrats aren’t loyal to the country and that is affecting support for policies that would be healthy for this country. Republicans also use it as a way to gain support for policies that are not and will eventually reach them too.
On white nationalism, question how the Gop’s and current administration’s relationship with Israel and Saudi Arabia fit into that especially when they go after the amazing but also very normal freshman gals in Congress
I think it could be useful to remind people of the native ethnic, religious and language diversity in Europe. (I know for myself there were a lot of things I didn’t know about Europe until I started a family genealogy project a few years ago)
It could be asked what people think about increasing the severity of child support enforcement if the state is unable to help single parents in the many ways that they do now.
Some questions about father figures and male role models could be put out there too.
Its bizarre to me that the people who were the most upset about the way dads were portrayed on television and blamed it on the left and ultimately Jews are likely now supporters of the current administration. Are we sure this is the “yay testosterone” party?
Is the GOP trying to portray American white men as the most unappealing creatures and lousy fathers on Earth? I would like to see that question in a poll.