WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet was the first Democratic senator to publicly call on President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. But Biden’s eventual exit did not result in victory for his party.
Bennet said that is because voters wanted a bigger change than what the Democrats were bringing to the table.
“I think Donald Trump was elected not because people love his policy ideas, but because they think he's more likely to blow the system up and they're frustrated with the way the system works,” Bennet said in an interview with The Durango Herald.
He said Democrats are having difficulty creating policies that address the working class, which has caused the party to lose voters. As a result of Democratic losses in Congress and the White House, Bennet said the Democratic Party is strategizing new policies that address the working class.
Karen Zink, who organized for the Democrats in Durango, said the large Democratic loss can be attributed to a change in voters’ values over time. Zink said people are looking for a change from the norm in the government, which echoed Bennet’s ideas.
“It's hard to understand the exact value system of the American electorate, except for a small majority of them who want a major change in our government,” Zink said.
Bennet said Democratic policies failed to resonate with the working class during the election.
“I think we are the Democratic Party that has had a harder time in this election with both white working people and people of color that are working,” Bennet said. “And we've got to figure out how to address that, because the party can't succeed without being able to attract a broad swath of those populations.”
Bennet said Democratic policies should address wealth inequality. He said only the wealthiest people are benefiting from economic growth.
“I don't think it was a messaging problem,” Bennet said. “I think that there's a fundamental problem out there, which is that since Ronald Reagan was basically elected, we pursued a set of policies in this country that have led to a situation where the wealthiest people in the country have benefited from our economic growth and everybody else has not benefited nearly as much.”
Bennet is not the only senator thinking that way. After the election, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, released a statement discussing how the Democrats have abandoned the working class.
“It should come as no surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned the working class people would find that the working class abandoned them,” Sanders said.
Bennet said the Democratic caucus in the Senate is beginning to have conversations about the need to address policies that benefit the working class. Those conversations are starting with Democrats who won in states where Trump won, such as Arizona.
“The Democratic caucus in the Senate, I hope, is going to have a real reckoning about what it is we just went through and how we can do better and how we can earn the American people's trust once again,” Bennet said.
Bennet released a postelection survey that aims to help policy planning for the next Congress.
He said the Democrats have a lot to learn from Colorado. For example, when Bennet ran for re-election to the Senate in 2022, he said he was able to earn votes from college educated and noncollege educated voters. An exit poll after the 2022 election said Bennet did well with white noncollege educated voters, losing the demographic by only one percentage point.
“I hope that we're going to be able to raise Colorado's flag in ways that will inform the national debate,” Bennet said.
Maria Tedesco is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at mtedesco@durangoherald.com.
