AMAC Exclusive by Herald Boas
President Biden has pursued a far more left-wing policy program than many expected, and as a result, he may be putting his party’s traditional voting base at risk.
Historically, black, Hispanic, Jewish, and working-class voters reliably voted in large percentages for Democratic Party candidates. Democrats still win a majority of these voters, but Republicans, most polls show, are cutting into their opponents’ previous large margins.
A majority of Jewish voters are culturally liberal and have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats in the past, but the recent wave of anti-Israel propaganda coming from “The Squad” and other Democrats on the left is being interpreted by many in the Jewish and sympathetic Christian communities as actual anti-Semitism. Just a year ago, few of the 24 Jewish members of the U.S. House dared criticize “The Squad.” Last week 12 of them formally did. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has become the pro-Israel party, and following President Trump’s Middle East success has garnered the support of more and more Jewish voters, many of them in swing states. For instance, nationally, in 2020, President Trump increased his share of the Jewish vote by 6 points, while Biden’s share of the Jewish vote fell to the lowest for a Democrat in over three decades. President Trump saw his greatest increase in Jewish support in Florida, where he won more than 40% of the Jewish vote.
Democrats made critical gains in 2018 and 2020 with suburban women who are sensitive to employment and other economic issues. But suburban women generally oppose radical ideas such as defunding the police (as apparently do most Black voters). If Biden’s economic policies backfire next summer and current rising inflation continues unabated, suburban women may support Republican candidates in 2022 and 2024.
Biden’s environmental energy policies and anti-pipeline actions hurt many working families, small communities, and businesses in critical Middle Atlantic and midwestern battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. Rejoining the Paris Climate Accord alone is estimated to cost 6.5 million jobs and stymie $3 trillion in economic growth over the next two decades in these communities.
Many Catholics traditionally vote Democrat, but President Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominees, all three of whom were Catholic, were interrogated about their religious beliefs by Democrat senators in a highly controversial manner. For example, Democrat Diane Feinstein was universally condemned for telling Trump judicial appointee Amy Coney Barrett that “The dogma lives loudly within you.” Although many elected Democrats are Catholic, including President Biden, the party is now attempting to repeal the Hyde Amendment, funding Planned Parenthood, providing international abortion funding to United Nations organizations that have participated in coerced abortions and sterilizations in China and Africa, and pushing the Equality Act which would destroy religious freedom, undermine faith-based adoption, abolish girls’ sports, and require doctors to perform unalterable gender-transition surgeries on children without parental consent or best medical judgement.
Perhaps the biggest GOP gains have been among Hispanic voters. This large ethnic group includes descendants and immigrants from Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Central and South American countries, and Spain. It is generally a religious and conservative community but diverse from its various national cultures. As the Democratic Party moves leftward, the Hispanic community, remembering the communist, socialist, and oligarchic dictatorships in their past, is showing itself to be more and more open to voting for the GOP and its conservative values.
As AMAC Newsline previously reported, in the 2020 election, President Trump secured more votes than he did in 2016 in 78 of the nation’s 100 majority-Hispanic counties and improved his vote count with Hispanics by 8 points nationally, winning a larger share of the Hispanic vote in not just Texas and Florida but also parts of New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Arizona. Republicans have continued making inroads with Hispanics in 2021 as well. In 85% Hispanic McAllen, Texas, for instance, Republican Javier Villalobos just won the mayoral race, shocking Democrats who had previously controlled every single local office.
As a recent Republican survey found, 63% of Hispanics in battleground states support capitalism over socialism, 72% of Hispanics support border security measures over open borders, 67% of Hispanics value faith, family, and freedom and believe those things are slipping away, and 80% of Hispanics believe that the public school system is failing. Almost 60% of Hispanics also oppose defunding the police, and more than 75% of Hispanics support voter ID laws. Hispanics are also the only ethnic group in America where the majority believes abortion should be made illegal in most cases. All of these views are starkly at odds with the platform of the Democrat Party.
Democrats have enjoyed heavy support in the past from minority groups, but a combination of taking their votes for granted and a tin ear for their needs and concerns has brought about a gradual erosion of their support. Democrat strategists must be especially concerned that the Biden administration, under pressure from the Democrat Party’s left-wing, will continue to promote legislation and policies unpopular with its own more moderate and culturally conservative voters. If these political trends continue, this erosion in Democrat support could accelerate in 2022 with enormous consequences.