As The Inquisitr previously reported, an poll last month suggested that Democratic presidential candidates Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders are pulling the most support from people that voted for Donald Trump in 2016.
During a recent NPR interview, Yang touched his support from Trump voters and suggested that, like Trump, he’s speaking to working class people that feel left behind by the Democratic Party.
“I talk a lot about the problems in people’s communities that they can recognize,” he said. “And to me it’s a mystery why other Democrats aren’t focused on the same problems.”
The 44-year-old serial entrepreneur claimed that when he grew up, Democrats were the party that represented the working class — “the party of the little guy or gal.”
He claimed that in today’s economy, these people are the retail clerks, fast food workers, truck drivers, and call center workers.
“The people who feel like their futures are being pushed more and more to the side.”
According to Yang, people voted for Trump because they didn’t feel the Democratic Party was speaking to them and the problems they faced.
“So that’s winning me a critical mass of Donald Trump supporters, which is, to me, crucial for the Democratic nominee,” he said. “The whole point is to beat Donald Trump.”
Andrew Yang is running for president on a message of moving the U.S. economy forward to counter automation and artificial intelligence.
He spoke with the NPR Politics Podcast about climate change, attracting Trump voters and being an optimist. https://t.co/bHnTUupgS6
— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) August 20, 2019
Yang also used to interview to speak about his close experience with defeat and how it has shaped him.
“I have failed so many times in my life from when I was young to now,” he said, highlighting his failed businesses and failed attempts at playing sports. He claims that this experience with defeat was a good experience and claims that today’s young people are taught to fear failure.
Politico reports that Yang is set to take the debate stage in September and October alongside Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and — most recently — Julian Castro. He currently has a 2 percent polling average according to RealClearPolitics , putting him just behind Cory Booker’s 2.2 percent and ahead of Tulsi Gabbard’s 1.4 percent.
Biden is still the frontrunner with 29 percent, followed by Warren with 15.8 percent, and Sanders with 15.4 percent. From here, Harris has 7.4 percent, Buttigieg has 4.6 percent, and O’Rourke has 3.4 percent.
Per The Inquisitr , Yang also made the cut to participate in CNN’s town hall event on climate change. The event will include all of the candidates currently set to appear in the fall debates save for Castro and Harris.
