A Debate

Former Vice President Joe Biden. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

Those are the only two choices the Democrats have for a nominee at this point.

Being at a college campus a few blocks from the White House, I’ve heard a lot about the Democratic Primary. A lot. A lot. Scrolling through Facebook, in Instagram stories, on the main page of the Washington Post website, everywhere.

I’m not going to pretend that I’ve been following the Democratic primary since the beginning, and am unsure if whatever happened in the race throughout most of 2019 even matters now. I didn’t watch the debates. I didn’t check the polls every day. I didn’t read the candidates’ policy platforms.

I never had, and still don’t have, a favorite for the nomination.

However, based on my reading of the news and seeing what different people in the party have had to say, there seems to be a theme emerging for this Democratic Primary. It goes something like this:

“This primary is a referendum on the future of the Democratic Party. It will determine whether the party will advocate a return to normalcy (Joe Biden), or call for the fundamental transformation of our political system into a social democracy (Bernie Sanders). One of these paths must be chosen before the party takes on Trump.”

I don’t know how accurate this framing of the primary is. And if this is a choice the party must make, I don’t think any one person is qualified to make it alone.

But for argument’s sake, let’s say this framing is accurate, that this debate does exist.

Does it matter? Surely, in the long-term the Democrats need to have a party identity.

But for the short-term goal of beating Donald Trump, does this debate have an impact? Does it even matter who the nominee is? Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe the Democrats are overthinking this.

77,744

Michigan. Wisconsin. Pennsylvania. 46 Electoral Votes. The three states which made Trump president.

Trump won by 10,704 votes in Michigan, 44,292 votes in Pennsylvania, and 22,748 votes in Wisconsin.

77,744 votes.

Despite all of the president’s boasts to the contrary, 77,744 votes in three states is an extremely narrow margin. Given the roughly 129 million people who casted votes for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, Trump’s margin of victory was 0.06%. This comes despite the fact that Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes.

Simply put, Trump barely won.

Before 2016, Michigan and Pennsylvania had not voted Republican since 1988. Wisconsin had not gone red since 1984. There are far more registered Democrats in Pennsylvania than Republicans. All three states have Democratic governors.

It is true that these states have been getting redder, particularly at the local level. But does Trump’s 2016 victory make them completely Republican? No.

The simple fact is that the clearest path to victory for the Democrats is to do exactly what they did in 2016, plus 77,744 more votes in 3 states.

How?

In the long-term, things such as ideology, messaging, and demographic shifts matter. As, of course, do policy details. They matter quite a bit.

But wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on the short-run? For a moment, throw out the lofty debate over the direction of the party, and look at the election on the ground.

Maybe it is the case that these states are still blue, at least at the presidential level.

Maybe it is not so much that the Democrats need to win back the much-spoken-of Obama-Trump voters, but simply turn out more of their own voters in the three key states. To do this, the party can just put more boots on the ground there, spend more money on ads there, and have the nominee hold more rallies there.

Maybe 2016 was just a throw, and this really is just an issue of resource allocation.

Looking at current state polling averages from Michigan, Biden beats Trump by 5.2%, and Sanders wins by 5.3%. In Pennsylvania, both Democrats edge out Trump by 3%. In Wisconsin, Biden and Sanders both trail Trump – Biden by 1.7%, and Sanders by 1%.

While it is true that in other swing-states, Biden tends to outperform Sanders in the polls against Trump, it is nonetheless a fact that in the three most important Rust Belt states, both candidates do about the same.

Alternate History

Think back to the weeks immediately following the 2016 election. There was a “what happened” moment within the Democratic Party, and countless pundits came up with theories explaining the party’s loss.

Grand, lofty opinions about the “forgotten man” could be observed on all major news sources.

But, for the moment, let’s pretend that Trump did not win. Let’s say that instead of carrying the three Rust Belt states by 77,744 votes, he lost them to Hillary Clinton by that same amount.

What would the discussion and the media narrative be for Democrats? Probably something much simpler:

“Phew, that was a close one. It looks like the Rust Belt is turning into a swing region, we need to devote more resources to those states.”

It was not the fact that the states were becoming redder, but rather, that they became so red that Donald Trump was able to win them, that was the shock to the party.

If Trump did not win the election, there would not be anywhere near as much hysteria, soul-searching, and intraparty debate as seen within the Democratic Party now.

A Silver Lining

But maybe that soul-searching is necessary, and maybe the fact that Trump’s win produced it is a good thing. The country is always changing, and the parties need to change with it, sooner or later.

It is quite possible, if not likely, that down the road Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona will be purple if not blue states. It is also possible that progressively-minded young people will have a larger influence on the nature of the party.

But for the short-term, in 2020, the clearest and simplest path to victory is through Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. If you’re Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders, all you need to do is mobilize 80,000 more Democrats in those three states to the polls than last time, and it’s over.

Have the debate over the future of the party. Battle about policy, about ideology. But maybe, for this election, that debate simply isn’t relevant to victory.

Keep it simple.