Howard Dean: Democrats Need a 50 State Strategy

Source:Grabien- The Beat With Ari Melber & former Governor Vermont and DNC Chairman Howard Dean (2005-09)

Just to start this off, I'm a JFK Liberal Democrat. I'm a big tent Democrat. And if you think about it, that's the only way Democrats have ever won any national election, at least in the TV era. John F. Kennedy had Liberals like himself, conservative blue-collar Democrats, Northeastern Progressives, and Southern and rural Dixiecrats. And he still barely beat Richard Nixon, who was the sitting Vice President of the United States, in a very popular Eisenhower Administration in 1960. 

And people are going to say that 1960 is not 2024. And I'll respond by saying: "Well, water is not fire. But you are missing the point". Democrats will never win a national election with just white-collar, new-tech, hipsters, who drink coffee all day, from their favorite coffee house. Mixed in with militant Socialists, who want to democratically take down the American, Federal, form of government, and replace it with some type of socialist state. There just aren't enough white-collar yuppies and Socialists, for the Democrats to even win California, statewide, let alone with a presidential election and compete not just in swing states, but mainstream Democratic states like Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey. (Just a few examples) 

So, I go back to 1960, but go up to 1992 and 96 with Bill Clinton, look at Barack Obama in 2008 and 12, Joe Biden in 2020. What these campaigns had in common, is that they were all big tent campaigns. I mean then Governor Bill Clinton won Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia, in 1992. Not just Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, all states that Kamala Harris lost in 2024. 

Go up to 2008, then Senator Barack Obama wins Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, to go with the Democratic Blue Wall states. 

4 years ago, Joe Biden wins Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia, to go along with the Blue Wall states and got real close in North Carolina. 

And of course left-wing Democrats as well as people who I at least call Yuppycrats, are going to say that American politics has changed and the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are just not the same anymore. My counterargument to that is that it's not so much that the country has changed politically. But it's the Democratic Party that has changed. 

The Democratic Party today is heavily dependent on big money, big, individual donors, who don't like MAGA and want to protect the country from MAGA. And the Democrats have taken that money and perhaps haven't replaced their grassroots organizations with all the individuals doing to the day-to-day, on the ground political work, but they're more dependent now on big advertising, in big and mid-size media markets, and do a lot less on the ground political campaigning, while relying on big name, "hot celebrities", the so-called fabulous people, to do a lot of their groundwork for them. 

So this brings me to what I think the Democrats should be doing instead. As I said yesterday, America is still 35-40% working class. 70% middle class, which combines both blue-collar and white-collar workers. The most reliable voters in America, are people who go to work everyday, who work very hard for their money, to pay their bills. Hoping to put some money away, and trying to give their kids a better opportunity at life, then they had when they started out. 

So exit polls from Statista indicate how both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris did with certain income groups in America: 

"Exit polls of the presidential election in the United States in 2024, share of votes by household income

According to exit polling in ten key states of the 2024 presidential election in the United States, 46 percent of voters with a 2023 household income of 30,000 U.S. dollars or less reported voting for Donald Trump. In comparison, 51 percent of voters with a total family income of 100,000 to 199,999 U.S. dollars reported voting for Kamala Harris." 

From Statista

If you look at the Statista poll, only to income groups that Vice President Harris won, were people making under 30,000 dollars and over 100,000 dollars. Not what you would call high turnout, reliable voters, since low-income workers tend not to vote at all for multiple reasons and Americans who make over 200,000 dollars in America, is still fairly small to the rest of the country. Which gets me back to my point about Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. 

The famous bank robber Willie Sutton coined the phrase: "Go where the money is". He was once asked: "Why do you rob banks?" With his reply being: "Because that's where the money is". Take that line of thinking up to a political sense and I would add you have to go where the votes are. American presidential elections are always decided by middle class voters and at least to a certain extent blue-collar workers. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, never get near The White House (at least as President) without these voters. 

And this takes me up to Howard Dean's 2005-06 50 state strategy, but take it up 20 years: 

"Watch: Dem leader who powered wins after Bush re-election on thwarting Trump's second term... 

From MSNBC

"Howard Dean: The Democratic Party's 50 state strategy has gone into som disrepair"

From Grabien

Now, when I'm talking about a Democratic 50 state strategy, am I expecting Democrats to win back Idaho, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and West Virginia? No, of course not. 

But the last time that Iowa had a Democratic governor, was Chet Culver from 2007-11. 

The last time a Democrat won the governor's mansion in Missouri, was 2008. 

The last time that Indiana won the governor's race, was 2003. Phil Bredesen was a two-term Democratic Governor of Tennessee from 2003-11. 

Kentucky and North Carolina both have Democratic governors right now. 

Roy E. Barnes was a Democratic Governor of Georgia from 1999-03. 

There's fairly recent evidence, as well as current evidence, of Democrats not just competing, but winning in overwhelmingly, blue-collar states, that lean right on cultural issues, but where Democrats can play and win, if they focus on economic issues. The current Governor of Kansas, is Laura Kelly, she's a Democrat, she was reelected in 2022. 

The 50 state strategy is not about winning every single state and being the governing party in every single state at the same time. But instead it's about shooting for the stars and seeing how many stars that you can hit. Aiming for perfection knowing that you'll never be perfect, but doing that to see how good you can be, how close to perfection that you can get. Instead of what the Yuppycrats are doing now, which is raising as much money as possible, from big donors, in hoping of holding the Blue Wall and winning all the Deep Blue states, to be a governing party in America. 

If you look Vice President Harris's campaign message in 2024, it was mostly about freedom and opportunity. And you could argue that she made her freedom message too much about reproductive rights and let's say non-straight people rights and didn't have a broader and big enough freedom agenda, that included reproductive rights and rights for non-straights in America. And I would argue that. But her message wasn't a far-left, big government, socialist and nanny state agenda. 

The Vice President's downfall was that she didn't reach enough voters. Perhaps she didn't ignore the Clinton/Obama/Biden coalition, that had both white-collar, as well as blue-collar voters, but she didn't reach enough blue-collar voters. And it cost her and the Democrats the election. 

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