Who’s Deplorable Now?

Democrats wonder if they still need the Midwest.

By James Freeman

Feb. 25, 2019 5:08 p.m. ET

Election night at the New York Hilton Midtown on November 8, 2016. PHOTO: SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES

It must be exhausting these days serving as a Democratic political operative. The party remains in a seemingly endless debate over how much to favor some demographic groups of American voters—and how much to punish others.

At one point there seemed to be a Democratic consensus that the party’s disappointing performance in 2016 had a lot to do with ignoring or deploring blue-collar voters in the Midwest. And at least some of the party’s current and potential 2020 presidential candidates still hold this view. This week in the New York Times, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns report from Iowa:

With polls indicating that electoral viability is as important to voters as any policy issue, a handful of the party’s prospects are already holding up their Midwestern credentials to make the case that they are the ones who can turn Big 10 country — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin — blue again.

But the Timesmen add: Read more …