Democrats are struggling to find a cohesive, effective message as they seek to unseat President Donald Trump next year.
As Politico noted, the declared 2020 candidates are going up against a strong economy that gained 3.2% in the first quarter of 2019.
Democratic strategist and pollster Celinda Lake told Politico that regarding the economy, Democrats "don't really have a robust national message right now. We will tend to talk about things like paid leave and equal pay — and those things are all very popular policies. But they don't add up to an economic message that is robust enough to win the presidency and beat Donald Trump, who talks about a very robust economic policy."
Many Democrats have focused their attention on the Mueller report, which showed that neither Trump nor his 2016 campaign conspired with the Russians to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. The report did not, however, come to a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice — a point Democrats have tried to exploit.
Politico reported that some of the top Democrats for president are picking out pieces of the economic picture — wages and higher taxes on the rich, for example — and using them as campaign talking points.
"Our view is that Democrats would be very wise to recognize how steep the mountain is on the economy,” Matt Bennett of Third Way, a center-left think tank, told Politico. "There are things about this economy that are very popular — low unemployment, a lot of jobs, there's been some real wage increase. We attribute zero, zero percent of that to good Trump policy … But he will claim credit, as he does for the sun rising and everything else, and we have to be aware that that could be potent."
During a rally in Wisconsin Saturday night, Trump praised the economic growth the country has experienced the last two years and took shots at the Democrats trying to vote him out of office.
"They should change that to the Radical Left Democrat Party," Trump said. "It's crazy what's going on with them. Oh, do I look forward to running against them."
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.