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Three Is A Trend: "I'll Raise Your Wages To At Least $20 An-Hour" Is *THE* Winning Message
On Winning The Ohio Senate Race—And Beyond.
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You’ve read the rhetoric. I’ve got the data!
I’ve been making a similar argument—with solid data—for a long time, as have others: winning a statewide or national election, and in many cases, local or Congressional races, can be done with a single, simple message:
I will raise your wages!
Nothing else* (teensy caveat coming).
It helps to have a specific number—say, raising the minimum wage to $20-an-hour—but, at least, the pitch needs to evoke in peoples’ minds an idea that will help pay the bills. THAT is what folks think about every single day—especially, the mysterious “independent” voter, not to mention the legions of people who aren’t particularly motivated to go to the polls (or vote by mail) for the vanilla-packaged candidates.
Today, I’ll briefly re-up two examples I’ve given in the past on wages-over-candidates vote trends in order to lay the foundation for the “three is a trend”.
A few meta points first:
(here is the teensy caveat)* I am not saying entirely ignore abortion rights, equality, homelessness, or Ukraine—or other important issues. A candidate needs to have positions, a vision and coherent answers, about a set of issues s/he might be asked about during the course of a campaign...
…Having a complete vision, across the many tough issues, is different than what a candidate wants people to mainly remember about about what s/he stands for…
…Which goes to the heart of a reality, perhaps upsetting to the wonks amongst us: 85 percent of voters (maybe I’m understating) never remember a full platform, or even 3 planks…
…most voters remember how the candidate made them feel.
First example re-up: After the 2022 mid-term elections, using the U.S. Senate race in Nevada as the template, I laid out a full-proof roadmap to making the Republican Party a rump party in every state in the country, including the entire southern swath from so-called “red” Florida all the way west to Texas and up the eastern seaboard through the Carolinas.
In the Nevada election, a ballot initiative to raise the state minimum wage to $12-an-hour OUTPERFORMED, without exception, the incumbent Democrat, Catherine Cortez Masto’s total in every single county; she squeaked out a statewide victory.
In every single county, Masto received fewer votes than the ballot measure.
The logical conclusion: it did not matter if you were a Democrat, Republican or independent, voters were enthusiastic to embrace something that would put more money in their pockets, even if they did not support Masto’s re-election.
Second example re-up: going back even further in ancient history (all of two additional years), I wrote in this publication in November 2020 that a full-on Joe Biden populist would have won Florida IF he had put a wildly popular ballot initiative to raise the state minimum wage (Amendment 2) at the forefront of his campaign.
Which he failed to do.
In 2020, in virtually every county in Florida, Amendment 2 outperformed Biden’s numbers—in some cases, by a lot (20-70 percent)—and that was true in counties that voted for Trump and even in counties where Amendment 2 lost but still tallied more votes than Biden. (I have the full county-by-county comparison in the original post for the truly wonky amongst you)
Then, consider:
The vote in favor of the Florida minimum wage initiative was overwhelming: 6,377,444 in favor (60.8 percent) and 4,111,094 opposed (39.2 percent) [votes cited were as of November 11th 2020; I assume the totals shifted a bit with late votes/corrections]. That is a winning margin of over 2.2 million votes. A blow-out, relatively speaking.
The presidential election results: Trump 5,658,847 (51.2 percent) versus Biden 5,284,453 (47.9 percent). That is a winning margin of just 374,000 plus votes out of more than 10.9 million votes. A squeaker.
You can’t forecast with 100 percent certainty a different outcome by asserting “what if”—different stuff can happen—but I think it’s a reasonable argument to make that, given the difference in margins in the minimum wage initiative compared to the presidential race, Florida was winnable with a posture of unreserved economic populism, and the minimum wage ballot initiative was the perfect vehicle to ride at that moment. And that’s a lesson for competition in Florida and other so-called “red states”.
So, let’s fast forward to today. I’ve spent some time over the past couple of years looking at various state ballot initiatives on economics, especially on raising minimum wages (I’ll write more about some other aspects of this research in the future).
Today, the focus is on Ohio. As many of you know, Sherrod Brown, the Democratic incumbent senator, is up for re-election in the state in 2024. I’m interested in this race for two reasons. First and foremost, If you’ve got issues with the Democratic Party (waving my hands vigorously as one in that crowd), Sherrod stands out as one of the best, and he has been solidly progressive since he served in the House, on issues of trade, banks, wages and unions.
Second, I live in what is somewhat a contradictory world: the Democratic Party is truly weak and disappointing on a daily basis AND the idea that Mitch McConnell might become the majority leader again after the 2024 election is an unacceptable outcome because the latter means a lot of real, immediate damage to millions of people. So, Sherrod’s re-election is crucial to maintain a slim majority of sanity (and, yes, the current Senate majority leader is cringe-worthy, at least as a messenger to voters)
To understand Ohio a bit, let’s spin the time machine back to November 2006. That was the year Sherrod ran for the seat for the first time. He ran against the two-time incumbent, Mike DeWine (who is currently Ohio’s governor).
Also on the ballot in 2006 was Ohio Issue 2, a constitutional amendment to raise the state minimum wage from $5.15-an-hour to $6.85-per hour on January 2007, and, then, index future increases in the minimum wage to the inflation rate.
So, what happened:
Brown won the race 56.16% to 43.82%
The minimum wage hike passed $56.65% to $43.35%
That is, the minimum wage ballot initiative margin of victory was about half-a-percentage point better than Brown’s victory over Dewine (note: the overall vote totals show that roughly 5 percent of those who voted in the Senate race just skipped the minimum wage question).
In more than half of the 88 counties in Ohio—49, to be exact—the minimum wage initiative:
Got more votes than Brown, including in counties in which the “No” vote on the minimum wage was larger than the “Yes” vote;
AND/OR Dewine polled more votes in those counties than the “No” vote on the minimum wage ballot initiative (that is, some people voted Republican, perhaps simply out of habit, but still voted in favor of the minimum wage hike).
AND/OR Dewine won counties where the “Yes” vote out-polled the “No” vote, especially in the smaller, rural counties where Republicans have to run up their totals to offset big urban counties, principally Cuyahoga (Cleveland).
Obviously, one can’t draw an exact one-to-one vote voter connection between the Senate race and the ballot initiative. But, in the context of other such measures, and results, including the two previous ones I’ve charted, I think it’s reasonable to see some relationship: Clearly, people who might opt, for whatever reason, to vote for a Republican who opposed the minimum wage ballot initiative, still voted FOR the minimum wage ballot initiative…
…BECAUSE it meant more money in their pockets and, perhaps, for some, it appeared to be a question of fairness.
In 2024, there is a ballot initiative proposal to put before voters in Ohio to hike the state minimum wage—it would increase the wage to $12.75-an-hour starting Jan. 1, 2025 and, then, to $15-an-hour in 2028 with specific dollar-per-year hikes, followed by future increases after indexed to inflation. The proposal is even more dramatic for tipped employees, who earn $5.50-an-hour—it would move wages up until they are paid the full minimum wage, plus tips, starting Jan. 1, 2029. It still must gather signatures to qualify for the ballot but I’m fairly certain proponents will be successful meeting the threshold.
I would say—and, I suspect that Sherrod and his team are on to this—if you look at what happened in 2006, that his path to victory next year, in what is almost certain to be a very close race, is to wrap his arms in a strong embrace with the minimum wage initiative.
Yes, November 2024 will be close to two decades since that 2006 election. But, things have only gotten worse for those people working for the minimum wage—which, I will remind everyone, should be at least $22-$24-an-hour based on productivity over the last four decades.
Translation: there has been an obscene theft of peoples’ labor. Well, you’all knew that! And, more important, even if they can’t cite a statistic, people feel that in their daily lives.
The conclusion I would draw:
Put hiking the minimum wage on every single state ballot in 2024 (in any state that has such a process) and campaign from coast-to-coast, in every single community, even where there isn’t a specific proposal to vote on (because the law doesn’t provide for ballot initiatives), on this one idea:
I will raise your wages!
Say it it every speech.
Promote it in every single piece of paid media and on every single social media platform.
Make it THE slogan of every campaign.
As I suggested in the posts from before, this is a national strategy as well. A candidate for the presidency—I will refer to her as Rosie the Riveter—could run a campaign with this theme: “I will accept your nomination under one condition—it shall be the position of the party in its platform that every single state party will spearhead a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage to $20-an-hour, to take effect on the day I am sworn into office and I will campaign in every state on that issue alone. And where a state party refuses to make this its singular focus, it will be the policy of the national party that every official holding party office in that state will be removed and replaced. I will make this initiative my signature, overriding issue of my campaign as a matter of morality and smart economics.”
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