The Columbian newspaper asked Prof. Victor Menaldo about Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Skamania) securing her districts for Democrats again, bucking the trend of Repulican success in many Washington districts.
Democrats faced heavy losses nationwide on Election Day, with many districts turning away from the party as Republican Donald Trump won another term as president.
Experts say Democratic leaders should take pointers from U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, who established herself as a nonestablishment candidate more focused on working-class issues than party lines.
For the second time she defeated her Trump-endorsed Republican opponent...
Throughout much of Perez’s campaign, she specifically focused on issues important to working people, such as maintaining good jobs and lowering costs for housing and health care.
Democrats have historically focused on those issues, Menaldo said.
“The problem is the reputation, I feel, for being socially disconnected, representing coastal elites, representing the ivory tower, representing the media, not speaking in the language of everyday kitchen-table ways of communicating,” Menaldo said.
Although Democrats have scooped up college-educated voters, as well as those in coastal cities and urban areas, many other voters feel alienated by the party — especially as political correctness has shifted vocabularies, Menaldo said.
“They’re living in bubbles that speak their own language,” he said.
Perez, on the other hand, speaks simply and clearly....
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