Popularism Works
Popularism Works
The successful “No” campaign against a constitutional amendment that would have banned abortion in Kansas shows how Democrats can win in red states.
Democratic leaders are constantly faced with having to make tradeoffs between two key constituencies.
On one hand, there’s the cohort of progressive, highly educated, and mostly young people who staff Democratic campaigns and allied advocacy organizations. On the other, there’s the crop of swing voters in the genuine middle of the political spectrum who the party must woo to win the races that decide control of government.
Sometimes Democratic leaders choose the maximalist positions that are popular with their base but may lead to losses (either at the ballot box or within a legislature), and other times they build a broad-based coalition to win over a majority of voters.
The latter approach — alternatingly referred to as “Democracy 101” or its wonkish name, “popularism” — tends to draw the ire of progressive activists and pundits. In a striking recent example, MSNBC primetime anchor Chris Hayes wrote a diatribe against popularism, in which he chided moderates for “chasing swing voters” when it’s possible those voters could simply be wrong when it comes to policy.
But Hayes’ argument reflects a common (and convenient) misunderstanding of popularism by the far-left. Rather than simply taking stances on issues because they are popular, popularism is a particular mode of campaigning that emphasizes areas of broad consensus (read: things that are popular) over those that are fringe (read: unpopular).
And it wins where Democrats don’t.
There’s No Problem With Kansas
A ballot initiative in Kansas featured a high-salience issue in which progressive messaging would have to be sacrificed and makes for a strong case study of the real-world merits of popularism.
In the campaign to convince voters in this deep red state to vote “No” on a constitutional amendment that would clear the way for a statewide abortion ban, liberals had some big strategic questions to answer.
What were they going to do? Should they speak their truth — or stay tight-lipped and win?
As Josh Barro breaks down in a thorough analysis of the “No” campaign’s messaging, they were incredibly disciplined in framing the issue. For a sense of their messaging, here are some ads they ran…
One ad (which never uses the term “abortion”) frames the proposed amendment as a “government mandate” and then argues that government mandates are bad:
Another exclusively targeted the most extreme and unpopular type of abortion ban, in which the life of the mother would be at risk if she were unable to receive an abortion. As Barro notes, this is precisely “the sort of abortion that the largest fraction of respondents will tell you should be legal in any poll”:
One more featured a doctor again framing the amendment as a “government mandate” and zeroing in on the fact that it could force him to violate the Hippocratic Oath and result in bans on abortion even in cases of rape or incest (two other areas where polling shows most respondents are squeamish on bans):
This kind of messaging featured prominently in the “No” campaign’s on-the-ground signage, too:
In sum, the “No” campaign was aggressively popularist. Instead of leaning into progressive messaging arguing for the need to expand access to abortion, the campaign met swing and right-of-center voters where they stand and argued persuasively against restricting access to it.
Let’s recap where the “No” campaign broke with far-left dogma and went with popularist savvy instead:
They ran ads arguing against government mandates. Progressives generally support mandates, especially in cases where they agree with what is being mandated.
They focused on the scenarios under which abortion bans appear the most extreme and unpopular. Progressives tend to believe that abortion itself is a universal good and doesn’t require justification by way of extreme case studies.
They argued that Kansans have fewer late-term abortions than people think, playing up the fact that there are already abortion restrictions in place (and not once disagreeing with those restrictions). Progressives generally want to expand access to abortion and strongly disagree with those existing restrictions.
They touted the fact that no government funding is spent on abortion in Kansas. Most progressives and even many moderates tend to think this is wrong.
Imagine what the archetypical progressive activist approach would’ve been in Kansas. Instead of a savvy popularist campaign against restrictions, the far-left would’ve run an “unpopularist” counter ballot effort to expand abortion access in the state.
What would have happened? We saw it unfold in real-time just weeks ago on Capitol Hill: in May, Senate Democrats brought to the floor a doomed bill that went far-beyond the protections of the defunct Roe v. Wade. As Barro has also described at length, this kind of unpopularist maximalism is the product of beltway advocacy organizations with a pathological reflex to make their concept of the perfect the enemy of the public’s idea of the good.
Time to Organize the Popularists
The Kansas “No” campaign made for a refreshingly successful rebuke of beltway extremism. They exercised tremendous discipline and pursued popularism. They censored their own perspectives and restrained themselves in order to win the middle and, in doing so, win the day. The “No” campaign painted a Republican policy as extreme, invasive, and anti-freedom — even to Republican voters — and won resoundingly.
Even better, the “No” campaign didn’t have to rile up the progressive base in order to mobilize voters on the left. Data from Catalist shows that Kansas Democrats were plenty fired up on their own, notching record turnout in this deep red enclave:
The takeaway here is that popularism doesn’t turn off progressives — it just wins more support among those who would otherwise be inclined to vote against them.
Why isn’t there more of this? Popularists might dominate the opinion sections of mainstream media outlets, but they aren’t generally organized to win the way they just did in Kansas.
The popularists have already won the debate with the far-left on the merits. Now, it’s time for them to organize.