The average Joe's proviso: surprising numbers of white working-class voters will support the Democratic agenda--if Democrats promise to reform the government that would carry it out.

• Author: Greenberg, Stanley B.

Democrats cannot win big or consistently enough, deep enough down the ticket or broadly enough in the states, unless they run much stronger with white working-class and downscale voters. That includes running better with white working-class swing voters, of course. But it also includes winning more decisively with white unmarried women, a demographic group that, along with minority and Millennial voters, is integral to the Democrats' base in a growing American majority that I call the Rising American Electorate. Working-class whites and white unmarried women are both key to competing in the states where Republicans are pursuing a conservative governing agenda unchecked and to keeping Democratic voters engaged in both presidential and off-year elections.

When the economy crashed in 2008, Obama won white unmarried women by a whopping 20 points (60 to 40 percent) and came within 6 points of winning white working-class women (47 to 53 percent), though he still lost white male working-class voters by 24 points and got only 37 percent of the white working-class vote. But the size of the Democrats' prospective national majority was clearly diminished by what then happened with these downscale, mostly working-class voters. In his reelection in 2012, Obama won white unmarried women by just a 4-point margin, and in the 2014 midterms, Democrats almost split their votes with the Republicans, getting only a 2-point margin. Hillary Clinton is just running even with the prospective Republican candidates among white unmarried women right now.

After the 2008 wave election that rejected the policies of George W. Bush, white working-class women quickly dialed down their Democratic support to about 38 percent, working-class men to 33 percent. That holds true for Clinton against her potential Republican rivals. There remains an undecided bloc that could allow Clinton to run stronger than this suggests, though she clearly has inherited the problem with struggling, downscale white working-class voters, both inside and outside the Democrats' base.

These voters, as we shall see, are open to an expansive Democratic economic agenda--to more benefits for child care and higher education, to tax hikes on the wealthy, to investment in infrastructure spending, and to economic policies that lead employers to boost salaries for middle- and working-class Americans, especially women. Yet they are only ready to listen when they think that Democrats understand their deeply held belief that politics has been corrupted and government has failed. Championing reform of government and the political process is the price of admission with these voters. These white working-class and downscale voters are acutely conscious of the growing role of big money in politics and of a government that works for the 1 percent, not them.

It is possible that their cynicism about government is grounded in a fundamental individualism and long-standing American skepticism about intrusive government. And it also may be rooted in a race-conscious aversion to government spending that they believe fosters dependency and idleness--the principal critique of today's conservative Republicans. If that is the prevailing dynamic, no appeal, no matter how compelling, would bring increased support for government activism.

Yet the white working-class and downscale voters in our surveys do support major parts of a progressive, activist agenda, particularly when a Democratic candidate boldly attacks the role of money and special interests dominating government and aggressively promotes reforms to ensure that aver age citizens get both their say and their money's worth. These findings came out of innovative research conducted in partnership with Page Gardner's Women's Voices Women Vote Action Fund and David Donnelly's Every Voice.

In recent years, too many Democrats have presumed that the white working class is out of the party's reach and that talk of reforming government and the political process simply does not move voters. My contention is that both of those presumptions are wrong. An agenda of reform is the key to Democrats winning the greater share of white working-class and unmarried women votes that will give the party the majorities it needs to govern.

The macro economy is recovering and job growth is robust, yet this hasn't altered the structural changes that leave all working-class Americans struggling to keep up with the cost of living or struggling just to afford something extra. This includes key segments of the new American majority, like white unmarried women...