In House battle, Democrats see hope in Trump territory

CEDAR RAPIDS: White, workingclass voters fueled President Donald Trump’s rise to the White House. If his party loses the House majority on Tuesday, it will be, at least in part, because those same voters abandoned the GOP.

While Democrats’ suburban offensive is well-known, an oftenoverlooked battle is underway across rural and working-class districts in states including Maine, Iowa and Minnesota. Trump’s coalition of blue-collar voters here may offer Democrats an alternate route to the House majority.

Specifically, Democrats are targeting 21 House districts carried by former President Barack Obama in 2012 that shifted to Trump in 2016 — districts now testing the strength of a Trumpera political realignment shaped by education, race and gender.

With the election days away , Democrats have cause for optimism. Public and private polling suggest Democrats are poised to capture at least two-thirds of the Obama-trump districts, according to operatives in both parties who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely before Election Day.

While Republicans privately blame an underwhelming slate of GOP incumbents, the Democrats’ prospective success is a reflection of a strong class of first-time candidates, extraordinary fundraising and a message focused on health care and the economy — not Trump.

In northeastern Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, where the cornfields outnumber the Whole Foods supermarkets, 29-year-old Democratic upstart Abby Finkenauer reflected on her blue-collar roots at a rally this week alongside the Democratic Party’s strongest liaison to working-class voters, former Vice President Joe Biden.

“He shares the belief that every kid who grows up in a working-class family like mine has a right to a bright future,” Finkenauer said as she introduced Biden. Obama won the district by nearly 14 points in 2012. Trump scored a 3-point victory here four years later.

The 29-year-old state representative, whose father and grandfather were union workers, has made her working-class roots central to the campaign in a district once dominated by union manufacturing and meatpacking jobs. She made a name for herself last year blasting a Republicanbacked bill that dismantled public-employee unions, shouting against it near tears on the Iowa House floor in Des Moines.

Democrats’ strong position has been built, in part, by a fundraising disparity that allowed them to set the terms of the debate. In just eight Obamatrump district across Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey and Illinois, Democratic candidates have spent $24 million on TV ads compared to $12 million from their Republican opponents, according to reports .