Democrats’ response to Trump turns to working-class worries

WASHINGTON — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer used Democrats’ response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address to swivel from impeachment to working-class voters’ worries, saying her party is focusing on easing health care costs and other pocket-book concerns. Democrats won House control in 2018 by lambasting unsuccessful efforts by Trump and congressional Republicans to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law. “So, we know if the economy doesn’t work for working people, it just doesn’t work.” Whitmer’s prominent role also highlighted her party’s outreach to women, who’ve soured on Trump’s belligerent style and whose growing support helped Democrats make big gains in suburban districts in 2018. Speaking from a community center in her home town of El Paso near the Mexican border, Escobar also described last August’s mass killing there by a shooter she said “used hateful language like the very words used by President Trump to describe immigrants and Latinos.” Escobar also touched on Trump’s impeachment, saying that he’d jeopardized the next election and threatened national security with his efforts to pressure Ukraine, an ally fighting Russian-backed insurgents, to produce damaging information on political rival Joe Biden.