Former Obama Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton predicted that “Democrats are never going to be able to win in midterms if we don’t figure out how to talk to white voters” on Wednesday’s “Kelly File” on the Fox News Channel.
Burton said that Election Night “a tough night.” And “I think that if you have to take any lesson from it whatsoever, it’s that democrats are never going to be able to win in midterms if we don’t figure out how to talk to white voters. I honestly think that that’s it. I don’t think that the message that we have has been able to really translate to the coalition of voters that help bring Republicans in to even more power.”
He argued that President Obama’s fall from the 2008 election to the rejection of his policies in 2014 was due to the fact that “presidential elections and midterm elections are totally different electorates, and so the kind of fight you have when the president actually is on the ballot is one that he’s engaged in. He’s engaging constituencies that are more likely to support Democrats in presidential years, and in the midterms I think that you’re always in a situation where people are looking at the situation around the world. And when you’re in a situation that we’re in right now where the economy’s doing better but the middle class isn’t feeling it, you’re seeing these crises around the world from Ebola to ISIS, and the president’s just unpopular, I think it’s very, very tough to win a lot of seats.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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