Downstate blues: how a black female Democrat won in the white Midwest

The 2016 presidential election saw the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton perform poorly in large parts of the rural Midwest, areas which had previously supported Democrats. Richard Johnson looks at the lessons which contemporary Democrats can take from Carol Moseley Braun’s 1992 Illinois Senate campaign, which saw her become the first black woman in the US Senate. He writes that one of the most important takeaways from Braun’s campaign is that she actively appealed to white-working class voters by emphasizing change and populist anti-elitist themes.