Portside

Democrats and progressives can take one key lesson away from the 2014 Republicans’ rout: Americans want a raise, and will vote for minimum wage ballot initiatives even in red-leaning states. Minimum wage increases passed in Arkansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and Alaska - - even as voters in each of these states also elected a Republican senator.

A whopping 67 percent of Alaskans voted to increase the minimum wage to $9.75 by 2016 - - yes, that’s Sarah Palin’s state. Voters in the Deep South’s Arkansas voted 65 percent for a minimum wage increase, and in Nebraska 59 percent of voters chose to up the minimum.

What’s going on here? After all, Democrats support a minimum wage. President Obama has been pushing for a $10.10 minimum. So why are voters turning down the candidates who support a raise, while voting for the raise itself?

People are still struggling economically – not only in the U.S., but around the world. They need their elected leaders to have big, bold plans for shared prosperity in an age in which new economic structures mean fewer jobs and more inequality. As Harold Meyerson writes in some of the most insightful election analysis out there, the Democrats find themselves in the same quandary as center left parties throughout the world. They are “parties that purport to be the economic advocates of the middle and working classes, but preside over abysmal economies with no clear sense of how to make them better.” We need a new social compact, and tinkering around the edges won’t do it.

It turns out that when the gods who run elections gave voters a chance to vote for good economic policy, they grabbed that chance. Voters essentially went underneath political parties who they perceive as not serving their economic needs.

So let’s give voters even more opportunities to vote for a minimum wage. Let’s make 2016 the year of the minimum wage ballot initiative. (After all, there is now virtually no chance of Congress raising it on a federal level any time soon.) A nationwide push for minimum wage ballot initiatives will not only give working people a much-needed raise, but will serve to bring out the young people, people of color and working-class voters the Democrats will need to win office. If Democrats offer a more robust economic plan, many of those ballot voters may stick with the party.

Some states, like North Carolina, don’t allow statewide ballot initiatives. There, both houses must vote by a super majority to refer a constitutional amendment. So, go local. Cities like Raleigh and Greensboro both can pass their own referendums - - and both are cities with the sorts of voters Democrats need to turn out.

Democrats still need a big economic vision, and minimum wage ballot initiatives aren’t a full platform. Yet such initiatives do seem to be a tool that America’s voters will support - - even those who are seeing red.