Triage, Part Two – The Demographics of Wright County

I will tell you everything you need to know about the demographics of Wright County in four sentences.

1.         Voters out here are afraid. They are afraid of losing their identity, which is the most valuable thing they have.

2.         Democratic candidates and leaders don’t recognize this. Their message does not speak to this core fear, and they lose over and over.

Let me elaborate:

Politics is sales. It’s the selling of an idea. It’s like selling cars, clothes, iPhones, or any other commodity. To sell anything, the sales and marketing department needs to understand the identity of the buyer. They need to understand the buyer’s core motivations, their aspirations and their fears. They need to understand how the buyer thinks, what they are like, and what kinds of things that they like. They position their product to take advantage of this knowledge.

There are no Democratic candidates, and no Democratic “leaders,” in Wright County who understand how to sell Democratic values in a way that lessens the fear of the voters and does not challenge their identity. This is why we lose.

We do not need to change our Democratic values. We need to change how we sell them. Think about Pet Rocks from the 1960s. Some marketer realized that you could pick up a rock off the street, put it in a box with some excelsior on the bottom, call it a “pet,” and sell that rock for $5.00. They were selling the packaging, not the rock itself. As the oft repeated cliché goes, you don’t sell the steak, you sell the sizzle.

I am flabbergasted at the failure of the DFL “leadership” out here, and the failure of Indivisible, to understand this. I am deeply concerned that the people who are steering Indivisible are going to mess things up for DFL candidates because their messaging reinforces the fears of most voters out here in Wright County. If Indivisible pulls off a miracle and Doug Chapin wins, I will shut up and go away. But if that doesn’t happen, there needs to be accountability.

So, who are the voters out here? And what are they afraid of?

Wright County has two house districts, 29A and 29B. 29A comprises the west part of the county, and includes Rockford, Delano, Waverly, Howard Lake, South Haven, and Clearwater. This is pickup truck culture.

A significant number of voters who live in 29A are laborers – plumbers, electricians, builders and contractors – who get in their pickup trucks every morning and head towards the cities for a job, then head back to Wright County every afternoon. About 5% of these workers belong to labor unions. As they commute, they listen to contemporary country music the most, followed by 90s rock and roll. Their families have lived out here for generations.

These voters are concerned that 29A is changing in ways they don’t like. They like the semi-rural nature of the area. Jason Franzen is running for mayor of Delano, and one of his main ideas is that Delano needs to declare a one-year moratorium on all new development until the city can address the best way to expand, if it expands at all. The people of 29A are conservative. They want to conserve the way things are right now. They don’t want Delano to become another Chanhassen.

House district 29B includes Buffalo, Monticello and Maple Lake. The voters of 29B are also conservative, but they are slightly different than the voters of 29A. Because of Interstate 94, there is more new development in 29B, and newer voters who do not have the same concerns about preserving rural life and farmland. These voters tend to be white collar professionals, though they don’t wear neckties and instead of carrying briefcases to work they carry backpacks. They don’t belong to labor unions. This is not pickup truck culture. This is SUV and crossover vehicle culture.

These voters are also concerned that 29B is changing. The change they are concerned about isn’t new housing development. Rather, it’s the potential for chaos to come up Interstate 94 from Minneapolis and establish itself in their cities. Their main financial investment is their homes, and with it their schools and communities. They are concerned that chaos will lower their property values and impact their schools.

For voters in 29A and 29B, Republicanism isn’t simply a matter of practical solutions to problems. For these voters, Republicanism is identity. It is a way of looking at the world that reinforces their idea of the central greatness of America and Americanism, and by extension, their own greatness. This in turn makes them feel superior to non-Republicans and Others, even if they are dirt poor.

The voters of 29A and 29B are getting the same message from Republicans and Democrats. The generic message from both parties is that taxes are too high, things are not affordable, there is too much fraud, and we need to improve our schools.

In both cases, the message is the same. But the style of messaging is different.

Republican politicians say that taxes are too high, and things are not affordable, but we Republicans deserve better and we will fix it. This reinforces Republican identity and assuages fear.

Democrats, and especially Indivisible, say that taxes are too high, and things are not affordable, because of Republicans. That is, because of the very people that Democrats need to start winning elections out here. The Democratic message fails out here because we are trying to convince Republican voters that they have been wrong all these years, and we are trying to make them feel stupid and guilty so that they vote for Democrats.

The Republican message soothes the fear. The Democratic and Indivisible message does not. Has anyone ever comforted a person experiencing anxiety and fear by shouting at them?

We need a different style of message.  More on this to follow.