Matthew Dowd is going against the grain. And he may be right with the strategy that Democrats must follow to win the 2022 election.
Matthew Dowd: A counterintuitive suggestion to Dems
I was watching Deadline White House with Nicolle Wallace in the background. She had a panel that included Matthew Dowd. I consider Dowd one of the better analysts on TV because he is very pragmatic, and while he is not a progressive, he is honest about his values.
As I listened in the background, I heard Matthew say that Democrats should not run on fixing inflation and on the economy. And he kept on going with this narrative. I rewound the program to make sure I was hearing him correctly. Indeed I was.
I immediately DMed Matthew Dowd. I asked if he would give me a quick interview in between segments. He said he had 10 minutes. So, we did it.
I told Matthew that I thought his advice on Deadline White House was great but counterintuitive. He expanded on it on Politics Done Right.
Dowd first laid out the case.
“So as I laid out that we have this divergence right now between what Joe Biden’s approval is and how people feel about the Democrats and how they want to vote,” Dowd said. “And so there’s this opportunity of people that one dislike both dislike Donald Trump and dislike Joe Biden. Is this group of voters, and they’re very divergent. They’re black, Hispanic, and they’re white. And so they’re all over the map. But there are people that are sort of unsatisfied right now with Trump and with Biden. Among that group of voters right now is very available, but it’s only available if Democrats talk about it in the right way. And so Democrats have an advantage on a number of issues, and Republicans have an advantage on a few issues.”
And then Dowd gave that counterintuitive advice.
“Republicans have an advantage on inflation and the economy,” Dowd said. “And Democrats have an advantage on democracy, voting rights, rights of all, choice and education. And if I were advising any Democrat, as I would any campaign that I would run, is you always want to spend 90% of your time talking about the issues that you have an advantage. And those issues I just mentioned should be coming out of the mouths of Democrats, almost some of them a vast majority of the time. Yes. Deal with and answer questions related to inflation and the economy and present the facts and all that. But that’s on the Republican’s turf. You Democrats should be arguing a broad case based upon constitutional rights, based upon democracy, and based upon all the things that the voters, these voters, these persuadable voters care about. If they do that and do that in a compelling way, they can win these races that otherwise people think they’re going to lose.”
Please watch/listen to the entire interview. It is enlightening. Matthew Dowd is the author of “Revelations on the River: Healing a Nation, Healing Ourselves.”
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