Why a 2012 Obama voter backed Trump?

[Pelle Svanslös]

Obama-Trump voter = one who voted Obama in 2012, Trump in 2016.
Drop-off voter = one who voted Obama but did not vote in 2016.
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Top Democratic pollsters have conducted private focus groups and polling
in an effort to answer that question, and they shared the results with me.

One finding from the polling stands out: A shockingly large percentage
of these Obama-Trump voters said Democrats’ economic policies will favor
the wealthy — twice the percentage that said the same about Trump.

“[Hillary] Clinton and Democrats’ economic message did not break through
to drop-off or Obama-Trump voters, even though drop-off voters are
decidedly anti-Trump,” Priorities USA concluded in a presentation of its
polling data and focus group findings, which has been shown to party
officials in recent days.

The poll found that Obama-Trump voters, many of whom are working-class
whites and were pivotal to Trump’s victory, are economically losing
ground and are skeptical of Democratic solutions to their problems.
Among the findings:

- 50 percent of Obama-Trump voters said their incomes are falling behind
the cost of living, and another 31 percent said their incomes are merely
keeping pace with the cost of living.

- A sizable chunk of Obama-Trump voters — 30 percent — said their vote
for Trump was more a vote against Clinton than a vote for Trump.
Remember, these voters backed Obama four years earlier.

- 42 percent of Obama-Trump voters said congressional Democrats’
economic policies will favor the wealthy, vs. only 21 percent of them
who said the same about Trump. (Forty percent say that about
congressional Republicans.) A total of 77 percent of Obama-Trump voters
said Trump’s policies will favor some mix of all other classes (middle
class, poor, all equally), while a total of 58 percent said that about
congressional Democrats.

“If you felt like your life wasn’t getting better over eight years, then
you might draw a conclusion that Democrats don’t care about you,” Guy
Cecil, chairman of Priorities USA, told me in an interview. “Certainly a
subset of these voters were responsive to what Trump was selling them on
immigration. But you had a lot of consistency with the Obama-Trump
voters … in terms of the severe economic anxiety they face.”

A similar dynamic was in place with the drop-off voters. Priorities
USA’s polling found that 43 percent of them said their income is falling
behind the cost of living, and another 49 percent said incomes were
merely keeping pace. “There’s a lot of commonality between these
drop-off voters and the Obama-Trump voters,” Cecil said.

Skepticism about the Democratic Party was echoed rather forcefully in
the focus groups that I watched. In one, Obama-Trump voters were asked
what Democrats stand for today and gave answers such as these:

“The one percent”.

“The status quo”.

“They’re for the party. Themselves and the party”.

One woman, asked whether the Democratic Party is for people like her,
flatly declared: “Nope”.

When it comes to communicating a message of economic opportunity that
wins over both “communities of color” ... Democrats “clearly have a lot
of work to do”.

Cecil pointed out that Democrats favor far more in the way of Wall
Street accountability and oversight than Republicans do. But he
acknowledged that Democrats must do more to take on Wall Street and said
the party should represent a substantially more ambitious economic agenda:

“The deck is stacked against most Americans in many ways. Pharmaceutical
companies that gouge consumers, for-profit prisons that abuse inmates
and do nothing to reform them, for-profit colleges that offer false
hopes and incredible amounts of debt (my brother went to one). Democrats
must take on these systemic problems and we must name names.

“The second part of the argument must include a real, forward-looking
economic plan that does more than rehash the same four policy proposals
from the last 20 years. How do we deal with automation and huge company
mergers? What do we do to address opportunity deserts in rural and urban
areas where real investment is almost impossible to find?”

Ultimately, though, Cecil said that all this research and polling
suggested to him that Democrats have an opportunity. The polling also
shows that, among the Obama-Trump voters, large percentages of the more
cautious supporters of Trump are concerned that he will go through with
deep cuts to social programs and the repeal of Obamacare.

“To win back cautious Trump supporters, we should tie Trump to GOP
policies that put the interests of the wealthy/businesses before the
middle class and programs they rely on”.

Cecil noted that winning back Obama-Trump voters would be key in 2018 to
defending vulnerable Democratic senators and winning the many
gubernatorial contests that are taking place in big swing states
currently controlled by Republicans. But he also cautioned against too
narrow a focus on those voters.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/05/01/why-did-trump-win-new-research-by-democrats-offers-a-worrisome-answer/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_1_na&utm_term=.588432073470