Biden’s Speech Made It Clear, He’s Trying To Win Back The ‘Forgotten’ White Working-Class Voter

President Joe BidenDespite his skill, he knows something that Hillary Clinton, twice-failed presidential candidate, never understood: The crucial role of the white working class vote in winning a seat in the Electoral College.

Tuesday night, the president made it known during his State of the Union address that he intends to win back non-college-educated white voters who have either stayed on the sidelines or flipped their support to the GOP thanks to former President Donald J. Trump’s 2016 run.

“My economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten,” Biden stated this in D.C., during the SOTU. “Amid the economic upheaval of the past four decades, too many people have been left behind or treated like they’re invisible.”

He was clearly speaking to the voters of largely white, rustbelt states, who have seen their jobs shipped overseas by the thousands since the 1980s.

It’s not the first time in recent weeks that Biden has referenced such voters. Biden addressed the Democratic National Committee winter meeting. Lamentable, “Those of you who were over 40, did you ever think we’d be in a situation where blue-collar workers would vote Republican?”

The president continued. “Because they think we forgot them. They think we don’t care. They’re coming back, but they — that’s what they thought. When those jobs left, a lot were left out and left behind. A lot of them came to believe we stopped paying attention to working-class the way we used to. A lot of them came to believe that the Democratic Party stopped caring about them.”

Indeed, Biden is correct that the demographic feels forgotten by the Democratic Party — and for good reason.

They were told by President Barack Obama that there was no such thing. “magic wand” This would help to bring back manufacturing jobs. The Democratic Party’s 2016 candidate didn’t even listen to her own husband’s warning that she needed to focus more on white, working-class voters in states like Wisconsin. She didn’t even step foot in the badger state, and in turn, Trump swept the rust belt.

But it wasn’t just animosity toward Clinton that drove those voters.

Trump’s 2016 message focused in large part on bringing back blue-collar jobs and addressing the plight of those in places such as Appalachia and beyond who watched their livelihoods and way of life be decimated due to policies in Washington, D.C.

Trump was rewarded for focusing on the “forgotten man” They also promised to attend to their concerns in D.C. Most politicians have targeted their messages to the middle class and minorities. They do. Trump was the first candidate to target a specific message at non-college-educated, white voters in a while.

As reported Pew “Two-thirds (67%) of non-college whites backed Trump, compared with just 28% who supported Clinton, resulting in a 39-point advantage for Trump among this group.” When Focus The numbers for white working-class men were even worse. Only 23% supported the Democratic nominee.

While non-college-educated white voters supported Republicans in the past two cycles, Trump’s 2016 margins were dominant.

“In 2012 and 2008, non-college whites also preferred the Republican over the Democratic candidate but by less one-sided margins (61%-36% and 58%-40%, respectively),” Pew Additional.

It seemed that Trump had taken this support as his in 2020. Instead, Trump’s campaign and his administration focused on minorities. They believed that increasing minorities’ support was the key to winning. He also introduced the platinum plan and criminal justice reform.

To be clear, reaching into new communities for support isn’t necessarily a bad strategy. Although the specifics of Trump’s strategy can be debated and debated, who can blame someone for wanting to bring in more Americans from all walks of life into the GOP?

Some critics think he didn’t pay enough attention to his most passionate supporters. On the 2020 campaign trail, Biden made contact with white non-educated voters, which cut away Trump’s support.

“As soon as he got inaugurated, he forgot the forgotten man,” Biden made the remarks in Pittsburgh in September 2020. That sort of rhetoric was commonplace throughout — but was largely ignored by both mainstream media and conservative critics. Biden was called a “woke socialist” by the Right. Legacy media praised him because of his diversity and inclusion.

Anecdotal evidence shows that speeches such as those mentioned above were very effective. Biden won Pennsylvania and Wisconsin respectively.

Trump’s popularity was higher among all demographics, except white men. Newsweek pointed out that Trump has improved with every demographic except white men. That “reflected an overall loss with not college-educated white voters, down from 67 percent of the vote to 64 percent.”

Biden, however, was able to improve on Clinton’s anemic support amongst that same section of the population.

“Biden won because he won back Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania,” Havard Business Review Columnist Observed. “The percentage of white working-class men voting Democratic increased from 23% in 2016 to 28% in 2020, while among white