Opinion: Democrats' historic defeat shows they need to stop lecturing and start listening

The reelection of Donald Trump was an absolute repudiation of the Democratic Party, President Joe Biden's record and Kamala Harris' candidacy, campaign message and strategy.

The Democratic Party lost ground among key demographics, including Hispanics, African Americans, men (especially young men), married women, Jewish Americans, Arab Americans, union voters and working- and middle-class suburban voters.

On every level, it was a historic election defeat that has created a new bloc of voters who will affect every future election – the hidden Trump Democrat.

The question is, why? And maybe more important, how did we not see this coming?

Biden ignored Americans' top concerns

As to why, it was simple enough to see even before this election. These voters grew tired of being lectured at by a cadre of political, social, cultural and establishment elites who minimized or outright ignored the serious economic pain they felt over inflation or the grave concerns they felt over illegal immigration, let alone other issues like crime or international conflict.

Even worse, they were told by these same elites that they had to subscribe to an ultra-liberal cultural orthodoxy or face a fusillade of personal and social media attacks.

Millions of these traditional Democratic voters went silent. They kept their anger hidden to themselves, ready to explode on Election Day – and explode they did.

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What is clear, for those of us who professionally try to understand voters objectively, is that this frustration and anger was self-evident, if Democratic Party elites only cared to stop and listen.

Consider this: For almost four years, in nearly every poll and focus group I have done, inflation and the economy were the top issues for voters. This was true in private and public polls.

Yet, the Biden administration ignored these concerns, viewing them as transitory. When Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who is someone I have long advised, penned a prescient op-ed in The Wall Street Journal years before the 2024 election and declared the threat of inflation, the White House and D.C. elites all but mocked it as hyperbole.

Well, it wasn’t. To hardworking middle-class and working-class people who pay those grocery or utility bills, inflation was a mortal economic threat.

On immigration, as nearly every public poll showed, voters ranked it as one of their top issues for the past four years. The response by the White House and Democratic elites was to wait until months before an election to pretend that the time has come to act. Seriously. This was not only a failure of leadership, but a failure to listen to their voters.

Voters were outraged over both inflation and immigration for years, but instead of addressing these two top issues head on, the Democratic Party and elites screamed them into silence. They dismissed them with condescending lectures about how the economy was great and the border has been long broken. Don’t worry, they said, we will fix it eventually.

So, voters seethed, and they went quiet, hid and waited until Election Day.

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My firm has conducted national public opinion research for our clients for over a decade. Over the past four years, in focus group after focus group, in poll after poll, we saw this economic and political anger in vivid color.

It was soul crushing to hear good people, from the left, middle and right, talk about how much economic pain they felt over inflation. These were not racists or misogynists; they did not hate Biden, Harris or Democrats. They didn’t even particularly like Trump. All they wanted was someone in Washington to listen and help, not lecture and talk down to them.

Democrats need to stop listening to elites

Many lessons will be learned from this epochal disaster for the Democratic Party – I hope. My biggest hope is a simple one for the Democratic Party, pollsters and those in the media: Stop listening to your fellow elites who mostly already agree with you.

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For God’s sake, stop listening to celebrities or coastal elites – they know nothing about the price of milk or eggs.

Instead, talk to real people, real folks in different parts of the country regardless of their political affiliation.

Most important, stop talking ? and listen without feeling compelled to explain to them why they are wrong for feeling this way: You will be stunned by what you learn.

Chris Kofinis is a veteran Democratic consultant and CEO of Park Street Strategies.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opinion: Why did Trump win? Democrats refused to listen to voters