A Democratic pollster who conducted focus groups after Democrat Terry McAuliffe lost the Virginia gubernatorial race said he would tell members of his party running \u2026<\/b>
\nA Democratic pollster who conducted focus groups after Democrat Terry McAuliffe lost the Virginia gubernatorial race said he would tell members of his party running in 2022 that \u201cwe have a problem.\u201d The centrist think tank Third Way sought out Bryan Stryker to help determine why a state that elected President Biden by a 10-point margin in 2020, elected a Republican governor just a year later. His focus groups targeted Virginia voters who supported Biden, but voted or strongly considered voting for Republican Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin. Asked by The New York Times what he would tell a Democratic candidate who is running in next year\u2019s midterm election, Stryker said he would inform them \u201cthat we have a problem,\u201d pointing to what he sees are the party’s failures at branding and messaging. He said the party\u2019s struggles when it comes to national branding is \u201cprobably deeper than a lot of people suspect.\u201d \u201cOur party thinks maybe some things we\u2019re saying aren\u2019t cutting through, but I think it\u2019s much deeper than that,\u201d he added. Stryker last month wrote in a memo outlining the findings from the focus group that voters were unable to name any accomplishments Democrats had achieved in recent months, with only a few pointing to the recently passed bipartisan infrastructure bill. He noted, however, that the $1.2 trillion legislation \u201cdidn\u2019t overcome their opinions that we have spent the last year infighting and careening from crisis to crisis.\u201d He also told the Times in an interview published Thursday that voters view the party as disproportionately focused on social issues rather than the economy, even though financial matters are top of mind for Democratic voters of all backgrounds. Democrats have been pointing fingers since McAuliffe’s loss to Youngkin last month by roughly two percentage points, with some blaming congressional gridlock or Biden’s sinking approval ratings, centrists blaming liberals and progressives blaming centrists. Stryker found that Biden-turned-Youngkin voters were \u201cunhappy with the direction of the country\u201d and do not believe the Democratic party \u201cget[s] it.\u201d \u201cThey aren\u2019t hearing solutions from us, they don\u2019t think we\u2019re doing anything to address the big issues (lack of workers + rising prices), and in general they just aren\u2019t seeing the smoother ride they thought they\u2019d get after having voted out Trump,\u201d Stryker wrote in the memo. The Democratic pollster also wrote in his memo that the party\u2019s strategy in Virginia to tie Youngkin to Trump \u201cfell flat with these voters.\u201d He told the Times that participants in the focus group \u201ckind of laughed at that approach\u201d because they disliked Trump as a person \u2014 not his policies \u2014 and didn’t connect him to Youngkin, who tended to conduct himself much differently. Stryker offered a grim warning about the party using that strategy again in future elections. \u201cThat may very well have been the best message that McAuliffe had, but if we are in that position again, we\u2019re going to lose a ton of races. We\u2019ve got to have something better,\u201d Stryker told the Times.<\/p>\n