Man with a plan for beating Trump
Former Colorado governor introduces himself to New Hampshire Dems while mulling run for president.
MANCHEST E R, N . H . » Before he was Colorado’s governor, before he was Denver’s mayor — even before he was a brewery magnate — John Hickenlooper was a laidoff geologist.
He lost his job with a Colorado oil company in the mid-1980s, after working for about five years in the field he’d gone to college to learn. He was among thousands who were laid off during a crash in oil prices.
“I think about what it was like to be out of work for so long,” he said. “The government did nothing.”
It’s this life experience, Hickenlooper told a room full of Granite Staters last week, that will help him connect with present-day, out-of-work factory workers, steelmakers and coal miners across the industrial Midwest and Appalachians. It is this story, he said, that will help him win back voters who once solidly supported Democrats but turned to President Donald Trump in 2016.
“It was the fundamental nonsense of government,” he said. “(We) felt like no one cared. It’s going to happen again. But we can get out ahead of it,” adding that the federal government must prepare workers for new jobs.
“Government has to relearn to serve people,” Hickenlooper said.
Democrats in New Hampshire, home of the nation’s first presidential primary, are eager to win
back the White House in 2020. There’s a toughness in their voice when they discuss winning in November.
“We have to beat Trump,” Democrat after Democrat told The Denver Post.
However, the rank-and-file recognize that in order to vanquish a president they loathe, they will need to either expand the electorate, win over Trump voters, who are among the most devout a president has ever had, according to numerous polls of Republicans — or both.
There’s a consensus among the New Hampshire voters who spoke to The Denver Post that to win over Trump voters, the Democratic nominee must be able to connect with them on an emotional level the same way Trump did four years ago.
“We need a candidate to tap into those feelings,” said Hassan Essa, a 21-year-old Manchester Democrat. “But they need to tap into that anger with facts and approach voters with joy and inspiration — not fear.”
Recounting his time at the unemployment office serves Hickenlooper on multiple fronts. It allows him to share his biography with voters who aren’t familiar with him, talk about the problems of an ineffective government and how he set out to fix them, and be aspirational.
Essa, who attended Hickenlooper’s event, didn’t gush about the former governor but said he liked his approach.
“I want a candidate that unifies this country,” Essa said. “I like him as a person. He could be a friend.”
Hickenlooper’s empathy toward displaced workers and track record of working across partisan lines could work with some of the Trump voters who previously supported Democrats, said an unaffiliated voter back in Colorado — a voter of just the sort Hickenlooper wants to win over.
Troy Reynolds, a construction superintendent, supported Barack Obama in 2008, but then vot- ed for Trump in 2016.
“Gov. Hickenlooper is one of the few Democrats that I would probably take a look at,” said Reynolds, who lives in Grand Junction. “Trump is shooting himself in the foot, as far as I’m concerned. I think he’s going to lose a lot of people on the fringes.”
But Rose Pugliese, a Republican Mesa County commissioner, said Hickenlooper will have to work harder for Trump’s most loyal supporters. She said she didn’t buy Hickenlooper’s pledge to protect displaced workers given his track record in supporting the Obama administration ending drilling on some federal land, including the Thompson Divide.
“It’s hard for him to say he cares about workers but then take jobs away,” she said. “I don’t know if I can speak for all of America, but at least in rural Colorado, it’s going to be hard for Hickenlooper to win votes from Trump.”
Historically, jobs and the economy have been seen as a key driver in how people choose a president. And in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election, pundits were quick to identify out-ofwork white voters in crucial Electoral College states as the key to Trump’s victory. Since then, new research has suggested that race and identity were greater motivators for Trump voters.
Given that premise, there are Democrats who think the party should focus on expanding the electorate with policies that are appealing to young voters, women, blacks and Latinos.
“I just think that Trump voters are not winnable,” said Jane Haigh, a 67-year-old Manchester Democrat. “They’re not rational, and they’re not acting on their own self-interest. I hear it in the news, that you can’t be too extreme, because it will discourage the mythologized Trump voters. I just don’t think it’s worth going after them.”
National political observers suggest Democrats are likely to answer the question of whether to pursue Trump voters or charge a new path in the nominee they select. However, the central argument for Hickenlooper is that he can do both.
“Part of human nature is we all feel safer with our own family, our own tribe, our own neighborhood,” he said. “But where real progress happens is when we’re able to work and trust and collaborate with people who are different than us.”