One of the questions/recriminations coming out of some of the disappointing losses in Georgia and Florida was the voting behavior of white women. In Georgia, they broke hard for Brian Kemp. The first assumption about this was that it must be racism. There was probably at least a little/lot of that, but there are a few other observations I'd like to make.
First, they voted for Brian Kemp because they are Republicans. Republicans vote for Republicans. Now, maybe (especially in Georgia) being a Republican is intrinsically wrapped up in the racism of the Solid South. But the most powerful force in politics today is partisan identity. Some of that is wrapped up in ethnic and racial identity, but that's true of both sides. You vote your tribe. As 2016 proved, Republicans will vote for an angry, ambulatory, racist mango as long as he's a Republican.
Secondly, the way we run elections in this country, it's "winner take all." You win with under 50% of the vote (like Jon Tester did), you still get 100% of the seat. As a result, we tend to look at large demographics as "winner take all," too. White women supported Ron DeSantis is true, but not true. A majority did, but when you're talking a group as large as "white women of Florida" you're still seeing hundreds of thousands of white women voting for Andrew Gillum.
Tribe is destiny, but you CAN change your tribe. The challenge for Democrats is to make more Democrats. Trump is actually helping with that. We have two years to make another 5% of the white women switch tribes.
That's the challenge.
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