Tony Jones, a 58-year-old truck driver and Teamster union member, traveled to rural Mabee, Michigan, to see former President Barack Obama campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris in Detroit last week. I drove out from my home in .
Mr. Jones, a Democrat, voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 and 2012, and as he stood in the packed convention center, he recalled the energy with which many of his acquaintances voted for Mr. Obama because they wanted change.
But he said many people won’t vote for Harris this year.
“They think there’s been a shift on the downside with the Democratic Party,” Jones said. “It’s a tough battle. I don’t know how to open up to someone like that who doesn’t understand me.”
As Mr. Obama, who is leading another rally tonight in Philadelphia, flies from battleground state to battleground state campaigning for Ms. Harris, Democrats flock to get a glimpse of him and, in 2008, I am reliving those hectic days. As an orator and a wise politician, he has a great presence in election campaigns. The support for Donald Trump pleased her supporters, but also served as a reminder of their party’s failure to keep his coalition together.
Some of the assumptions that spread after President Obama’s victory, that a “dominant coalition” of young and nonwhite voters supporting him heralded a long-term shift toward the Democratic Party, do not hold true in the tumultuous Trump era. There wasn’t. Instead, support for the Democratic Party has declined slightly among some key groups that helped put Obama in the White House, including black and Latino voters.
Harris and her allies insist they are not trying to recreate the Obama coalition, and there is no need to do so. “Elections are different. Coalitions are different. The last time Obama won was 12 years ago,” said Garlin Gilchrist, lieutenant governor of Michigan, which Obama won by more than 16 points in 2008. “The goal is to win in 2024,” he said.
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