Republicans’ Counterintuitive White Grievance Politics Playbook
Vance has captured headlines as the GOP Senate primary candidate who won Trump’s endorsement, but should he win tonight, his candidacy is interesting for another reason. And that is, his candidacy is a test case of how popular Republicans’ message of white grievance politics will be in 2022.
In the lead-up to the election, Vance released a highly controversial political TV ad that asked voters two shocking questions: “Are you a racist?” and “Do you hate Mexicans?”
The experts I spoke with ahead of today’s election told me that this messaging is mainly intended for conservative white voters who want to feel validated in their fears about an increasingly diverse electorate, as Republicans continue to lean into a rising sense of white victimhood post-Trump. But at the same time, these experts told me that, though it may seem counterintuitive, some Republicans also think this message will appeal to voters of color — especially Latino voters, with whom Republicans made gains in 2020.
On the one hand, this sounds counterintuitive, especially since some polls have found that a majority of Latino voters do believe that America is a racist country and that Latino or Hispanic people don’t have the same opportunities here as white people.
But it’s not immediately clear that messages like Vance’s will turn off the bulk of Latino voters because Latino identity isn’t as uniform as you might think: Many are plenty conservative, particularly on the immigration policies Vance alluded to in his video and on certain race-related issues, like support for Black Lives Matter.
Ultimately, it will be hard to conclude much from tonight’s results as there just aren’t a ton of Latinos in Ohio, but the type of pitch Vance is making is an important one, as it may be the case that grievance sells.