Winning

I've heard it said that there are two main ways America's political parties campaign. 

The first strategy is to tell voters that monsters hide under their beds. The monster might be Fascism, Communism, etc. It might be a school system so wealthy it can transport your child to a hospital and pay surgeons to change his sex. The monster might be an odd nation that for no reason empties its prisons and insane asylums and sends them to pillage and rape in Wisconsin. The monster might even be something as usual as assertive women or non-white men. 

The second strategy is to study the voters and find out what they want; then offer to meet their needs. 

Both strategies work at times. The second strategy kept the New Deal in power for decades. But the New Deal's secret was they actually tried to help ordinary people. They were credible.