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New York Times political analyst Nate Cohn argued in a new piece that President-elect Donald Trump “shattered” the Democratic Party‘s dreams of a new multicultural majority by appealing to the working class and depriving liberals of their fading appeal to non-college-educated voters.
“The overarching pattern is clear,” Cohn wrote in an article Monday. “In election after election, Democrats underperformed among traditional Democratic constituencies during the Trump era. Sometimes, it was merely a failure to capitalize on his unpopularity. Other times, it was a staggering decline in support. Together, it has shattered Democratic dreams of building a new majority with the rise of a new generation of young and nonwhite voters.”
“This overarching pattern requires an overarching explanation: Mr. Trump’s populist conservatism corroded the foundations of the Democratic Party’s appeal,” Cohn wrote. “It tapped into many of the issues and themes that once made these voters Democrats.”
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Cohn argued that Democrats did not fully capitalize on Trump’s unpopularity and also faced a “staggering decline” in support.
After Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, some polls have found that Democrats are feeling depressed about their party’s future.
Democratic pessimism about the party’s future is at its highest point in eight years, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Republicans, on the other hand, are riding high and have the most optimistic outlook about their party recorded since the 2016 election, Trump’s last presidential victory.
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Cohn laid out in an eye-popping chart how Republicans made massive progress from the 2012 election that re-elected Barack Obama to the 2024 race that sent Trump to a second, non-consecutive White House term. It included double-digit gains among Blacks (19-point net swing), Hispanics (29), Asians (17) and voters aged 18 to 29 (14).
“After three Trump elections, almost every traditional Democratic constituency has swung to the right,” Cohn wrote. “In fact, Mr. Trump has made larger gains among Black, Hispanic, Asian American and young voters in his three campaigns since 2016 than he has among White voters without a college degree, according to New York Times estimates. In each case, Mr. Trump fared better than any Republican in decades.”
“Even at the times Mr. Trump made relatively few gains — say, among Hispanic voters in 2016 or Black voters in 2020 — Democrats nonetheless underperformed,” Cohn wrote.
Cohn wrote that while Democrats have been perceived as “the party of the people” for at least a century, Trump has managed to flip that reputation around with his “populist pitch” that “deprived Democrats of their traditional role in American politics, gradually weakening their bonds with working-class voters, as well as nonwhite and young ones.”
Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.