Way to Win Memo recommends both/and approach to policy solutions and partisan distinctions to counter culture war attacks from Republicans
Washington, DC – A new strategy memo from Way to Win, “How Democrats Can Fight GOP’s Culture War Attacks and Go On Offense,” is a must-read. It underscores our advice for why and how Democrats should lean in on immigration issues. As the memo notes:
One thing that is clear from our studies of multiracial voters is that if a message vacuum exists, conservatives will fill it. We saw a lot of evidence in unpacking voters’ views of how influenced they are by conservative narratives that lean into powerful human emotions like fear, loss aversion, and desire for economic success.
In response, the memo advices that Democrats should “go on offense” and focus on messaging that does “three fundamental things:
- “Takes the Democrats’ side in the argument – defending our values and ideas rather than running from them or promoting anti-government and conservative ideas, and cheerleading concrete positive impacts of the Biden Administration in a way that connects emotionally and acknowledges the real pain people are in – ie., ‘We’re going to be okay.’
- Inoculates against the GOP attacks by calling them out for their obstruction, extremism, and racial division and explaining why they are doing all of it – for their corporate backers, at the expense of the rest of us; and
- Makes the voter the hero of the story and leans into the power of cross-racial solidarity to do big things, including naming all the parts of our winning coalition – white, Black, Latino and Asian American voters.”
As Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman write in the Washington Post about the new memo and its implications:
As they face the possibility of a midterm election calamity, Democrats are engaged in a debate about whether to focus their message on ‘kitchen-table issues’ to win independent voters, or to make a strong attack on Republican culture-war demagoguery, which could energize their own voters to turn out. But why not do both?
…To repeat, the political environment might be so forbidding that no message will be able to rescue Democrats. But this approach seems promising, in that it at least it tries to accomplish both necessary goals of winning moderates and energizing liberals, the goals of persuasion and turnout.
According to Vanessa Cardenas, Deputy Director of America’s Voice:
Way to Win’s recommendations ring true for those of us focused on immigration and border issues ahead of the midterms.
Instead of avoiding hot-button issues such as immigration, Democrats need to confront them head-on and forcefully articulate their vision. By standing for solutions and values, by defining the radicalism of their opponents, and by making the voter the hero in the story, Democrats have the opportunity not just to neutralize Republican attacks but to win over swing voters and mobilize base voters.
The majority of the public supports the Democrats’ vision on immigration – 70% support a path to citizenship and three-quarters believe immigration is good for America – and voters want solutions that promise to modernize an outdated and broken immigration system. Democrats need to call out Republican radicalism and xenophobia – making it clear that GOP candidates are not offering real solutions but only rank cruelty and racially divisive dog-whistles.
