I think about this quote from America's Worst Senate Minority Leader quite a lot:
For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two... three... moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.
Not because it was wrong (narrator: but it was wrong), but because he said it loudly and proudly to an audience of journalists. It was a lot worse and more destructive than Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comment, which in context was fine.
He basically said, "fuck you, don't vote for us, longtime voters, because we prefer these fancy suburban Republicans." With a big smile on his face! He was very impressed with himself!
And he did it, as Democrats do, to impress DC political journalists with his "courting the center right" strategy.