As the last election demonstrated, the compact geographical distribution of Democratic voters with liberal or progressive ideologies in states that were already blue allowed Trump to win in the Electoral College despite a sizable Democratic victory in the popular vote.

Democrats, in turn, must figure out a way to extend their reach beyond the mega-population centers located mostly on the coasts, where cosmopolitan, globalist and post-materialist values dominate.

Jeff Spross, the economics correspondent for The Week, wrote in an April 3 essay “The Dark Side of Cities”:

Trump supporters’ politics may be filtered through the perverse lenses of racial anxiety and cultural reaction. But they are not wrong to look upon cities as distant and alien metropolises that have benefited at rural America’s expense.

“So what’s the fix?” Spross asks.

Return to the old ways of robust public investment, antitrust enforcement, and tax and regulatory policy to force money back down the income ladder. Stop treating deficit reduction as a goal in itself; rather whatever deficit level maintains full employment is the right one.

The technological revolution poses a major problem for Democrats seeking ways to make economic outcomes more equitable by geography and class.

In a June 2015 joint interview with the Harvard Business Review, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, authors of “The Second Machine Age,” argue that it’s “time to start tackling the economic downside of new technologies.” They voice a mixture of pessimism and optimism.

McAfee noted that, given current trends,

We’ll continue to see the middle class hollowed out and will see growth at the low and high ends. Really good executives, entrepreneurs, investors, and novelists — they will all reap rewards. Yo-Yo Ma won’t be replaced by a robot anytime soon, but financially, I wouldn’t want to be the world’s 100th-best cellist.

Brynjolfsson argued, however, that the economic consequences of technological advance can be shaped by policy:

Our one confident prediction is that digital technologies will bring the world into an era of more wealth and abundance and less drudgery and toil. But there’s no guarantee that everyone will share in the bounty, and that leaves many people justifiably apprehensive. The outcome — shared prosperity or increasing inequality — will be determined not by technologies but by the choices we make as individuals, organizations, and societies. If we fumble that future — if we build economies and societies that exclude many people from the cycle of prosperity — shame on us. Technological progress is an extraordinarily powerful force, but it’s not destiny. It won’t lift us into utopia or carry us into an unwanted future. The power to do that rests with us human beings. Technologies are merely our tools.

For the moment, the Democratic Party is forced to stand by and watch the Trump spectacle, unable to enact policies to address the issues Spross, Brynjolfsson, and McAfee raise. Would better candidates help to enlarge the electorate to appeal to voters whose primary concerns are economic?

One place to look toward is the West, where such Democratic governors as Jay Inslee of Washington, John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Steve Bullock of Montana preside.

All three have been elected and re-elected in competitive states where to survive politically they have had to balance urban and non-metro bread-and-butter interests.

Shifting the focus of attention onto politicians like these would be a modest first step, but for a party struggling to regain its foothold, a modest first step would be a major achievement. The question going forward is whether Democrats can compete more effectively and more efficiently for the votes of those who have been left behind. They should set themselves this challenge.