The Wall Street Journal - 03.09.2019

A4| Tuesday, September 3, 2019 PWLC101112HTGKBFAM123456789OIXX ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

CAPITAL JOURNAL

By Gerald F. Seib

dates, are now trying to high-

light what they see as a yawn-

ing gap between the

president’s pro-worker rheto-

ric and his policies.

Mr. Trump’s campaign

points to the strong economy

and steps he has taken to pro-

tect American jobs, including

tearing up global trade deals,

levying tariffs on foreign steel

and clearing away environ-

mental obstacles for mining

and other industries. It plans

to launch a grass-roots labor

In addition to the seven

killed, 22 others were injured,

according to law enforcement.

Those killed ranged in age from

15 to 57 years old.

The Bureau of Alcohol, To-

bacco, Firearms and Explosives

is still investigating how Ator

obtained the rifle he used in

the killings, said John Wester,

an ATF assistant special agent,

on Monday.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said

in a tweet Monday that Ator

had previously failed a back-

ground check to purchase a

gun in Texas. “We must keep

guns out of criminals’ hands,”

Mr. Abbott wrote.

About 15 minutes after the

call to the FBI, Department of

Public Safety troopers, un-

aware of any of Ator’s calls,

pulled him over for failing to

use a turn signal.

Before the vehicle came to a

stop, Ator pointed a rifle to-

ward the rear window of his

car and fired several shots to-

ward the DPS patrol unit,

shooting a trooper, authorities

said.

Ator then began a tear

through the city that left more

than a dozen crime scenes. He

shot two other police officers.

He hit a 17-month-old girl in

the face. He killed a mail car-

coalition in which pro-Trump

union members would seek to

recruit fellow workers to sup-

port the president. While Hil-

lary Clinton commanded the

overall labor vote partly due

to strength among public sec-

tor unions, her numbers were

down about 10 percentage

points from President Obama’s

in 2012.

Union leaders and Demo-

crats see an opening. Mr.

Trump, they point out, hasn’t

delivered on his promise to

push a massive job-creating

infrastructure package, and

his administration has scaled

back overtime and other

worker protections. Last week,

the president nominated Eu-

gene Scalia, a former corpo-

rate lawyer who has battled

unions, to be the next labor

secretary.

Democratic candidates have

put appeals to working-class

voters at the front of their

campaigns. “I am a union

man,” declared former Vice

U.S. NEWS

Democrats Neglect Moderates at Their Peril

erate voters in every election

since Ronald Reagan left the

scene.

But just prevailing among

moderates isn’t enough. To

win nationally, history shows,

Democrats need to win them

decisively. In every presiden-

tial election Democrats won

in that time span, they car-

ried moderates by more than

a dozen percentage points. In

the elections they lost—in

1988, 2000, 2004 and 2016—

they failed to carry moder-

ates by such a margin.

T

hat represents a cau-

tionary note as the

Democrats’ liberal

wing tugs at the large field

of candidates angling to de-

feat President Trump in

2020. As a group, they are
      taking positions that would
      have been considered out of
      the mainstream just a few
      yearsago,urgedonbythe
      party’s energized progressive
      wing.
      Sen. Bernie Sanders, who
      has pulled the party left over
      the past four years, contin-
      ues to set the pace. He al-

ready has proposed free

medical care, free college tu-

ition, college debt forgive-

ness and a $16 trillion cli-

mate-change plan. Then, over

the weekend, his campaign

said he would be unveiling a

plan for the federal govern-

ment to pay off $81 billion in

Americans’ past-due medical

debt.

Not every Democrat is em-

bracing the Sanders agenda.

But he isn’t an outlier either;

along with former Vice Presi-

dent Joe Biden and Sen. Eliz-

abeth Warren, Mr. Sanders

stands in the top tier of

Democratic candidates.

Meantime, the moderate

ranks are thinning. Mr. Bi-

den, who certainly is a mod-

erate by today’s standards,

remains the leader of the

Democratic pack, and Sen.

Amy Klobuchar will join him

on the debate stage later this

month.

But other moderate voices

are fading away: Former Col-

orado Gov. John Hicken-

looper has left the race to

run for the Senate, and Sen.

Michael Bennet, Rep. Tim

Ryan, former Rep. John Dela-

ney and Montana Gov. Steve

Bullock—all of whom argued

for a more moderate agenda

in the first two Democratic

debates—have failed to qual-

ify for the next one.

That is just one sign that

the primary-season energy is

high on the left wing of the

party this year. It is a dy-

namic that has some Demo-

crats worried that the party

has simply stopped talking to

many of the moderate voters

who again could prove criti-

cal in the general election.

One such Democrat is

James Zogby, a longtime

member of the Democratic

National Committee and

head of the National Demo-

cratic Ethnic Coordinating

Council. That is a unit of the

national party set up in the

1990s to reach out to the

kinds of working-class ethnic

groups—such as Polish-

Americans, Hungarian-Ameri-

cans, Lebanese-Americans—

who long formed the

backbone of both the work-

ing class and the Democratic

Party. They are the personifi-

cation of the moderate voters

who have proven so crucial

to Democratic success.

Mr. Zogby worries these

traditional Democrats in the

heart of the country aren’t

hearing from today’s Demo-

cratic Party, focused as it is

on millennials and coastal

enclaves. “People will call

them everything,” Mr. Zogby

says. “They’re white work-

ing-class, moderate, ethnic

votes. They’re swing voters,

they’re Reagan Democrats.”

He adds: “When I speak to

them they say we didn’t

leave the Democratic Party.

They left us. They stopped

talking to us.”

M

r. Trump, of course,

did talk to them in

2016, and attracted

enough of them in Pennsyl-

vania, Michigan and Wis-

consin to win the White

House, even while losing so

many votes along the coast

that he failed to win the na-

tional popular vote. A re-

peat is entirely possible,

even though some of these

moderate voters actually

have been harmed by Trump

trade policies.

“These constituencies

have been handed to Trump

on a platter,” Mr. Zogby says.

“He gets them to vote

against their own interest

because he speaks to them.”

Mr. Zogby views many of

these voters as available to

his party. They tend to be

more mildly conservative on

social issues than many other

Democrats, he says, but em-

brace a progressive economic

agenda: higher taxes on the

wealthy, an expanded health-

care safety net, robust con-

sumer protections. “My feel-

ing is that a carefully crafted

approach to the social issues

could create a majoritarian

coalition.”

One problem for Demo-

crats, he adds, is that the na-

tional party’s current culture

isn’t geared toward reaching

such voters.

Indeed, many Democrats

think the 2020 election will

be won simply by mobilizing

the party’s progressive base.

History, though, suggests

that is a risky proposition.

As Democrats cruise to-
ward their next debate later
this month, and consider
how far their party should
move left along the way, here
are some electoral facts to
consider.
Moderate
voters have
long been one
of the most
reliable con-
stituencies for
Democrats. Exit polls show
that Democratic presidential
candidates have won a ma-
jority of voters who identify
themselves as moderates—as
opposed to liberals or con-
servatives—in every election
since 1988. Put differently,
Democrats have carried mod-

President Joe Biden, who

leads in 2020 primary polls,

during his campaign kickoff in

Pennsylvania in May.

The president was paying

attention. During a recent

speech at a petrochemical

plant in Pennsylvania, he

urged rank-and-file union

members to take action

against leaders who continue

to press them to back Demo-

crats. “Vote them the hell out

of office,” he said.

Joseph McCartin, a labor

expert at Georgetown Univer-

sity, said 2016 wasn’t just

about Mr. Trump pulling in

significant amounts of union

support in Midwestern states;

it was a reflection of the de-

cline of organized labor. Wis-

consin, which Mr. Trump won

by about 23,000 votes, lost

176,000 union members from

2008 to 2016, according to his

research. The trend was simi-

lar in Pennsylvania and Michi-

gan.

The concern seen in Minne-

sota also was apparent in Erie

County, Pa., one of several in

the state that flipped for Mr.

Trump.

“He won the presidency

here. I am determined to

change that,” said Bill

McLaughlin, business manager

of the local chapter of the La-

borers’ International Union of

North America.

On a recent day, Mr.

McLaughlin talked to three la-

borers in bright yellow shirts

smoking on their break at a

construction site. Two men

said they had voted for Mrs.

Clinton in 2016, and the third

said he didn’t vote. Mr.

McLaughlin started his pitch

anyway. He said if a rule

change to apprenticeship pro-

grams proposed by the U.S.

Labor Department goes

through, union laborers in

Erie could see their wages and

benefits cut to $17 an hour

from more than $40 an hour.

“I hope you have some very

strong feelings about the elec-

tion,” he said.

There are 720,000 union

members in Pennsylvania, and

Mr. Trump won the state by

just 44,000 votes. Rick Bloom-

ingdale, president of the state

federation of the AFL-CIO,

said the president will hold on

to socially conservative mem-

bers concerned about abortion

and gun rights. “We just have

to convince 44,000 or 30,

people that voted for Trump

last time to vote for someone

else.”

Some union members who

backed the president in 2016

are rethinking their votes, Mr.

Bloomingdale said. “In some

areas where Trump did well

there’s been some disillusion-

ment, but not totally. They’re

not convinced the Democrats

are there yet either. They’re

waiting to hear what the can-

didates are going to say about

the economy.”

—Eliza Collins

contributed to this article.

Like many in Virginia,
Minn., Jim Pechonick works at
an iron-ore mine and was
raised a Democrat. Then came
Donald Trump with promises
to restore the greatness of
American steel.

“The only time in my life
I’ve ever been out of a job was
under Obama,” said Mr.
Pechonick, 51 years old, recall-
ing a stretch in 2009-10 when
the mine closed due to the
poor economy. In 2016, he
joined a sizable number of
union workers, particularly
white men, who voted for Mr.
Trump. “Somebody needed to
shake up the country,” he said.
The shift helped Mr. Trump
win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin
and Michigan, states with
strong union traditions, and
has put Minnesota—which he
lost narrowly three years
ago—into possible contention
in 2020. The president’s appeal
to builders, electricians,
plumbers, roofers and miners
has alarmed labor leaders, who
are now scrambling to prevent
further erosion.
“It’s a serious problem for
us,” said Alan Netland, presi-
dent of the North East Area
Labor Council in Duluth,
Minn., which represents
40,000 union members. “Peo-
ple may say, ‘I voted Republi-
can and the world didn’t fall
in, so maybe I better keep do-
ing that.’ ”
Union officials, along with
Democratic presidential candi-

ByAlex Leary

in Virginia, Minn.,

andKris Maher

in Erie, Pa.

Unions Work to Reclaim Votes Lost to Trump in 2016

Union organizers in Minnesota are mobilizing field workers in

preparation for the 2020 election. Above, a woman canvassed in

Duluth, Minn., over the summer.

ALEX LEARY/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

34%

39%

65%

54%

43

52

55

39

38

38

61

56

17

20

82

68

14

8

86

87

2012

2016

Democrat Republican

2012

2016

2012

2016

2012

2016

2012

2016

All union members

White men members

White women members

Nonwhite men members

Nonwhite women members

Largely driven by white men,

Donald Trump in 2016 did

better among union members

than any Republican

presidential candidate since

Ronald Reagan.

Percent of presidential vote by

union members

Source: Cooperative Congressional

Election Study

Candidates have put

working-class

appeals at the front

of their campaigns.

rier before stealing her postal

van to continue shooting.

The two police officers that

were shot are in fair condition,

according to Medical Center

Hospital spokesman Trevor

Tankersley. The trooper, as of

Sunday, was in serious but sta-

ble condition and was expected

to recover.

The toddler’s mother, Kelby

Giesler Davis, wrote on Face-

book that her daughter Ander-

son had been released from

University Medical Center in

Lubbock after surgery on her

mouth and chest Monday.

Ator was killed after police

confronted him near a Cinergy

movie theater. Authorities sug-

gested that he may have been

planning to continue his at-

tacks inside the crowded the-

ater.

Authorities said Monday

that Ator’s mental state had

apparently been declining long

before the killings. His home,

outside of Odessa, was “a

strange residence,” Mr. Combs

said. Mr. Gerke said he had

heard, but not confirmed, re-

ports of Ator being fired from

at least one other job recently.

Odessa Mayor David Turner

said Sunday there was no indi-

cation that the shooting was

motivated by any particular

ideology. “I think it’s just some-

one with some problems,” he

said. Law-enforcement officials

Sunday said they didn’t suspect

that Ator had ties to domestic

or international terror groups.

Seth Ator, the man who

killed seven people in a shoot-

ing rampage Saturday, was

fired from his job and called

911 and the FBI tip line in the

hours before opening fire in

and around the West Texas city

of Odessa, authorities said

Monday.

Ator went to work at Jour-

ney Oilfield Services on Satur-

day and was there a short time

before he was fired, Odessa Po-

lice Chief Michael Gerke said in

a news conference. Ator called

911, complaining about his em-

ployer, but left before officers

responded.

Later, in the afternoon, he

called a national FBI tip line

with “rambling statements

about some of the atrocities

that he thought he had gone

through,” said FBI Special

Agent Christopher Combs. In

neither call did Ator make any

threats, authorities said, but

the Federal Bureau of Investi-

gation began trying to find out

who he was.

These and other details

about the gunman began to

emerge Monday, some 48

hours after the shooting. Ator

shot 29 people as he drove be-

tween Odessa and nearby Mid-

land on Saturday afternoon,

firing at random and hijacking

a U.S. Postal Service van, au-

thorities said. Ator died when

officers intercepted and shot

him outside a movie theater.

BYELIZABETHFINDELL

Texas Shooter Called 911 Before Rampage

Authorities continued to work at one of several crime scenes

Monday as new details about the gunman began to emerge.

SUE OGROCKI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

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