Why did the Democrats get creamed? Sherrod Brown can tell you. - Tumulty, WaPo

[question everything]

(snip)

Now, the man who was possibly the last Democrat capable of being elected statewide, Sen. Sherrod Brown, has been defeated and is heading home. Costing half a billion dollars, Brown’s losing battle against Republican Bernie Moreno became the most expensive Senate race in the country. Brown came up about three points short in his quest for a fourth term. Why? Brown says the political shift in his state began with a signal event: the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, the first year of Bill Clinton’s presidency.'

“Workers have slowly migrated out of the Democratic Party,” he told me. “It accelerated as more and more jobs were lost. And I still heard [about NAFTA] in this campaign, especially in the Miami Valley, Dayton, where we still won, [and] up there in Mahoning Valley, where we didn’t win.”' Workers came to view Democrats “as a bicoastal elite party,” he explained. “We were too pro-corporate. They know Republicans are going to shill for corporate interests. They expected Democrats would stand up for them, and they don’t see that nationally.”

Then Trump came along and switched the script, breaking with the GOP’s long-standing free-trade stance to denounce NAFTA and other agreements, promote more protectionist policies and make promises such as ending taxes on overtime. “Republicans are now, for the first time, actually trying to talk to workers,” Brown said.

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But although he himself will no longer be there come January, Brown insists that Democrats can — and must — win back the votes of working-class Americans. Those voters may disagree with some of the party’s stances on social issues, such as guns, abortion, crime and immigration, but will return to the fold “if we stay on economic issues and do it right.”

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His future options include running again for the Senate in 2026, when there will be a special election to fill the unexpired term of the seat now held by Vice President-elect JD Vance (R).

https://wapo.st/3W1olse