Ron Brownstein, CNN: “The blue-collar barricade looms as the most stubborn obstacle to President Joe Biden enlarging his base of support. As both candidate and president, Biden has devoted enormous effort to regaining ground with working-class voters, particularly the White voters without college degrees who have drifted away from the Democrats since the 1970s. But in the campaign, he improved on Hillary Clinton’s anemic 2016 performance with those voters only modestly. And in office, an array of recent polls show he’s failed to increase his approval rating with those non-college-educated White voters much, if at all, beyond the roughly one-third of them who he attracted last November – even though he’s aimed much of his rhetoric and presidential travel at them and formulated an agenda that would shower them with new government benefits.”

“Biden’s small gains with these voters last fall still helped him tip the critical Rust Belt battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and many Democrats say that any progress with them will be critical to the party’s electoral fortunes in 2022 and 2024. ‘The key is you have a president who is speaking to them and fighting for them, non-college-educated voters of all races,’ says John Anzalone, who served as a lead pollster for Biden during the campaign. ‘I think he has their attention, and that’s what is really important for the future, whether the 2022 election or 2024.’ But the continuing resistance confronting even Biden – a 78-year-old White Catholic who highlights his working-class roots at every turn – underscores the challenge an increasingly diverse and culturally liberal Democratic Party will face in recovering as much support as it attracted from these voters as recently as in Barack Obama’s two campaigns. It may be too strong to say Biden represents the Democrats’ last chance to restore their competitiveness with working-class White voters. But it seems likely that if he can’t do so, there are few others in the Democrats’ next generation of emerging leaders who have a better chance.”