How Grassroots Resistance Networks Boosted Pennsylvania Democrats in 2018

After the 2016 election, Americans formed thousands of anti-Trump grassroots resistance groups across the country. This chapter draws from in-depth interviews and other evidence to explore the electoral activities and impact of such groups in six pivotal Pennsylvania swing counties around Philadelphia and Lehigh Valley. Formed in suburban and rural areas without historically strong Democratic Parties, these resistance groups revitalized local Democratic Party organizations and elected like-minded candidates to political office. Their members registered new Democratic voters and recruited, trained, and deployed volunteers to canvass door-to-door during crucial campaign moments. These groups, predominantly led by women, also supported many women candidates at both the federal and state level. Despite their broad support of Democratic candidates, resistance groups retained varying degrees of independence from party organizations and navigated occasional friction with incumbent party leadership. Resistance efforts helped Pennsylvania Democrats in 2018 and improved their future prospects, though questions remain about the extent to which they will remain independent of the Democratic Party in 2020 and beyond.

How Trump Flipped Michigan

Twelve Michigan counties that voted for Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012 flipped to assure Donald Trump’s surprising 2016 victory in this supposed “blue wall” state. To understand how this happened, this chapter tracks the tactics and organizational capabilities of the statewide Trump and Clinton campaigns and looks closely at rural Manistee County, where a pronounced swing from Obama to Trump coincided with increased voter turnout. As the research reveals, the Trump campaign inspired new grassroots enthusiasm and tapped into preexisting conservative networks, including those built by Americans for Prosperity-Michigan and the Tea Party. While local Democrats exhibited tepid support for Clinton, strong anti-establishment and identity-based sentiments fueled support for Trump.

From Obama Victories to a GOP Edge in Florida

Many observers believed the state of Florida was trending blue after Barack Obama won it twice, but instead Republicans have since won nearly every statewide election after 2012. What happened? This chapter explores the grassroots organizing strategies of presidential and statewide candidate-led political campaigns in Florida’s pivotal I-4 corridor. After Obama built a formidable ground game, the state Democratic Party allowed it to wither, and neither Hillary Clinton in 2016 nor Andrew Gillum in 2018 built a comparable operation. Meanwhile, Florida Republicans and Koch-aligned groups deliberately—and successfully—imitated and adapted Obama’s organizational strategies. Unless Democrats rebuild, Florida will likely be red for the foreseeable future.

Trump’s Trump: Lou Barletta and the Limits of Anti-Immigrant Politics in Pennsylvania

This chapter examines the underpinnings and limits of ethno-nationalism in the politically pivotal state of Pennsylvania by tracking the career of Lou Barletta, US congressman and former mayor of Hazleton in the declining rustbelt area of Luzerne County. Often known as Donald Trump’s political godfather, Barletta rose to political fame by attacking Hispanic immigrants as criminals and sponsoring severe restrictions on their rights. He went on to win a seat in the US House and become one of the first members of Congress to endorse Trump’s 2016 candidacy. The president then recruited Barletta to run for the Senate in 2018 and strongly backed his campaign based on highlighting threats from immigrants. But Barletta lost, illuminating the limits of anti-immigrant appeals in statewide and national politics.

Citizen Activism and the Democratic Party

How will new grassroots resistance groups affect the electoral prospects and activities of the Democratic Party? This chapter draws evidence from groups in many states, but it principally analyzes changes in the large, variegated state of Pennsylvania—where more than two hundred grassroots anti-Trump groups emerged after 2016 in all but a dozen of sixty-seven counties. Drawing from answers to online questionnaires given by leaders of eighty-two groups, the chapter details group involvements in the 2018 election and analyzes the changing relationships between grassroots groups and Democratic candidates and local parties in five Pennsylvania settings: inner cities, metropolitan suburbs, upscale exurbs, declining rust belt areas, and rural counties.

The Overlooked Organizational Basis of Trump’s 2016 Victory

Conventional wisdom claims that the Trump 2016 campaign was “disorganized,” but this judgment overlooks bargains with leaders of preexisting federated networks connected to millions of voters in pivotal states. Newly found data about the Fraternal Order of Police, the white police union, show that lodge and membership locations help predict Trump margins beyond other pro-GOP variables. Trump deliberately appealed to white police anger at the Black Lives Matter movement and (in a departure from his typical mass rallies) spoke in front of law-enforcement audiences. Similarly, Trump and his top lieutenants courted Christian right pastors and National Rifle Association leaders willing to disseminate campaign messages and mobilize followers in exchange for Trump’s promise to nominate right-wing Supreme Court justices. Many voters outside of big cities were receptive because they are embedded in evangelical and gun-friendly social networks and believe their lifeways are threatened by outside, liberal forces.

Why Republicans Went Hard Right in North Carolina

North Carolina Republicans used to be pro-business social moderates but moved hard right as they rose to supermajority power after 2010. As this chapter explains, this change was enabled by newly formed links between grassroots networks in the Tea Party and Christian right and free-market-oriented think tanks and elite advocacy organizations. Intertwined organizational networks operating outside of traditional party organizations boosted GOP electoral prospects and pulled the party’s agendas further right on issues such as voting rights, Medicaid expansion, environmental protection, and tax reform. Conservative organizational gains have exacerbated geographical partisan divides in North Carolina, as they have in other states and nationally.

Dissecting the Conservative Triumph in Wisconsin

After Republicans gained full control of Wisconsin government in 2011, they quickly enacted far-reaching retrenchments of the public sector, tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks, and—above all—bills curbing union rights. Republicans had barely mentioned the anti-labor measures on the campaign trail, and these steps were not popular. This chapter explains why such transformative policy changes happened anyway, through the efforts of interlocking conservative organizational networks previously installed in Wisconsin. The chapter sheds light on the roots and impact of similar right-wing organizational and activist networks at the heart of ongoing transformations across all fifty US states.

Middle America Reboots Democracy

Right after the 2016 elections, Americans in towns, cities, and suburbs organized to oppose the Trump administration and reactivate grassroots citizenship. This chapter discusses who the newly active citizens are and what they have been doing in their communities and in electoral politics. Most group participants are educated white women. They formed new connections and encouraged locally grounded civic engagement, and many spent weekends going door-to-door on behalf of Democratic candidates. In the 2018 elections, some groups in Democratic strongholds perceived incumbents as blocking the way to pro-democracy reforms. Meanwhile, their deep-red-district counterparts supported Democratic contenders against entrenched Republican incumbents. The ideological coordinates of candidates they supported were diverse, yet the underlying pattern was consistent: new activists fought for better government, up and down the ballot.

Conclusion: America at a Crossroads

Americans are profoundly divided in political matters, but it is probably fair to say that regardless of party or ideology almost all were surprised when the 2016 presidential contest was called for Donald J. Trump on the evening of November 8, 2016. Tearful or elated, people woke up the next day with a sense that the United States was a different country than they had presumed. It was as if a national boat moving a bit erratically in a slow-moving river suddenly struck a hidden waterfall and tumbled into rocky rapids stretching as far as the eye could see. Would the country swirl out of control and break up on the rocks? Or would a recognizable version of the United States of America come through at the other end, with everyone rearranged and shaken up but safe?...