“White working-class voters are open to an expansive Democratic economic agenda,” Mr. Greenberg said in an interview. “Yet they are only ready to listen when they think that Democrats understand their deeply held belief that politics has been corrupted and government has failed. Championing reform of government and the political process is the price of admission with these voters.”
In 2016, many white working-class men and women are uniquely open to a Democratic appeal based on populist proposals if expressed in a way compatible with “practical common sense,” because the Republicans will be basing their appeal on the opposite — an angry appeal to either nationalism (in Mr. Trump’s case, like building a wall on the Mexico border) or conservative extremism, including huge tax cuts that benefit the wealthy (as in Ted Cruz’s flat-tax plan).
That said, Democrats face a tough challenge, as the Super Tuesday contests illustrate. In Virginia, a state generally considered more representative of the country, Mr. Sanders received only 15 percent of the white non-college vote, while Mr. Trump claimed 33 percent. In Georgia, Mr. Sanders won an abysmal 7 percent, in contrast to Mr. Trump’s 40 percent.
With Hillary Clinton garnering 16 percent in Virginia and 9 percent in Georgia, the combined Democratic share of the white working-class vote in Virginia was 31 percent, and only 15 percent in Georgia.
To the extent that Virginia can be considered a reasonably representative state, that 31 percent support is notably below the roughly 35 percent national level of support Barack Obama got from that demographic in the 2012 elections and the 34 percent level of support Democrats received in the 2014 midterms. While the Democratic turnout in the general election is likely to significantly improve on the low numbers of Super Tuesday, the primary results reveal the difficulty of the challenge.
Still, Democrats do not have to regain the majority of white working-class support that they enjoyed in the 1950s and 1960s to succeed. With the relative decline of that demographic as a percentage of the electorate, if Democrats can reliably earn above 35 percent or 36 percent of their vote, they will be in a very strong position in November.
