Yves here. While this article is accurate in defining a path that the Democrats could take to shore up their fading popularity, author Sean Mason does not appear to sufficiently appreciate that the Democrats decided to throw the working class over the side decades ago. One can point to different turning points, some in the 1960s (with the new found enthusiasm for the growth of well educated professionals), the 1980s, or at the very latest, Bill Clinton, who repeatedly threw lower-income voters under the bus, with measures like “ending welfare as we know it,” and his crime bill that intensified US mass incarceration. Let us also not forget that we have the great American heroine, Monica Lewinsky, to thank for Clinton not being able to pursue Social Security “reform” due to the scandal over his affair with her putting his Administration on the back foot.
Admittedly, the press and punditocracy have done a good job of selling the bogus idea that better social safety nets and labor protections are winner with voters. As reader Richard Kline wrote in 2012 in Progressively Losing:
…let’s dispense with several basic misconceptions regarding why progressives are presently so unsuccessful.
“Progressive goals are not popular.” Even with the systematically distorted polling data of the present, this is demonstrably untrue. Inexpensive health care, progressive taxation, educational scholarship funding, curtailment of foreign wars, environmental protection among others never fail to command majority support. It is difficult to think of a major progressive policy which commands less than a plurality. This situation is one reason for the lazy reliance upon electioneering by progressives, they know that their issues are popular, in principle at least. Rather childishly, they just want a show of hands then, as if that is what goes on really in elections…
“America is a conservative society.” That is demonstrably untrue on any historical analysis. Like the other points here, it is a meme invented and spread by the right wing itself. There are three grains of truth in the contention, however.
More than some West European derived socio-cultures, there is an initial value placed in Christian profession; not faith, profession, and not an enduring one either….This makes the society seem from the outside more Christian, and hence ‘conservative,’ than it is in fact. This has for the majority become the ‘civil religion’ of Bellah, but is in effect a secularized form of Christian pilgrimism; one must profess to belong.
Second, there are specific communities in American culture which are deeply conservative, notably most rural whites. Their society is in fact distinct from the culture of the county as a whole, something they understand but that the majority chooses not to. (This concept is argued, if slightly differently, by David Hackett Fischer in Albion’s Seed, an analysis I endorse and would extend.) The point being that their society in America is conservative, but American society as a whole is liberal if one does a sociological analysis.
Third, American society is not radical because it is deeply suspicious of ‘combinations,’ cabals, cliques, or factions who combine to advance their own interests as distinct from the broader public interest. There are deep socio-historical roots for this antipathy to faction, but they are real. One consequence of this, though, is that American society as a whole has generally been hostile to organized labor as a ‘special interest.’ American society also has a bedrock attachment to personal property and personal liberty—essential liberal values, one might add, not conservative ones—which impede any advocacy of leveling or uniformitariansim; i.e. liberty always trumps equality. The flip side here, though, is that Americans are just as suspicious of ‘sections,’ ‘trusts,’ ‘banksters,’ and oligarchs if they see them as an organized, self-interested force. This distrust is not a conservative preference.
An issue for those seeking economic justice, as Sanders’ presidential bids and now the Mamdani mayoral campaign attest, is that a policy program that is genuinely soft s socialist, as in old-style European democratic socialist, elicits extremely aggressive pushback from the moneyed classes, not just the billionaires who have come to dominate political donations, but also the so-called professional managerial class which has become a strong, arguably a driving force, in the Democratic party.
Perhaps I am lacking in imagination, but I don’t see how Team Dem can hang on to most of its upper income, 1% and 0.1% voters and seriously push for policies that will make a big difference to the working class. Yawning income inequality had greatly widened the gap between their interests. The central role of money in politics means the Democrats won’t abandon their established donors.
However, what this article points to is more concerted efforts to promise things they won’t deliver. It was a winning strategy historically. It worked for Trump. So expect an effort to craft a new improved version of tired, pandering policies.
By Sean Mason, a data scientist and research associate at the Center for Working-Class Politics. His research focuses on analyzing large datasets to understand the appeal of progressive economic policies across demographic groups. Originally published at Common Dreams
The Democratic Party has significant work to do if it hopes to bounce back from its 2024 electoral defeat. Making inroads with the working class is the only way possible, and a new report from the Center for Working-Class Politics and Jacobin shows that economic populism is the best path to bring them back into the party.
The Democratic Party lost big in 2024, badly enough to raise the question: Where are the votes they need to win going to come from now, especially in purple states and districts? Major demographic groups, some of which were mainstays of the Democratic Party in the past, swung to the GOP, especially Latino men and even a significant number of Black men.
By the time of the 2024 election, the Democratic Party had firmly committed to its strategy of appealing to suburban moderates at the cost of blue-collar voters. Back in 2016, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) famously said, “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”
Fast forward to 2025 and the Democratic Party’s options for remaining competitive in swing districts seem more limited than ever. Is it too late for the party to turn back to the blue-collar voters it left behind years ago?
Even more surprising, support for a millionaire’s tax—part of Mamdani’s campaign but not his challenger Andrew Cuomo’s—was 44% among working-class 2020 Trump voters.
Our new report, which analyzes responses to 128 survey questions from gold standard academic surveys, finds that championing progressive economic policies can reverse the exodus of blue-collar voters from the party. It can also help us understand why those policies resonate most with working class voters.
Two key findings prove the potential of leaning more heavily into economic populism. First, contrary to what many might expect, the working class has become both more progressive on economic issues and less conservative on social issues in recent decades. From abortion and gun control to gay rights and views on racial inequality, the working class today is, if anything, more progressive than the working class that helped elect Barack Obama in 2008.
What keeps this leftward shift from being a common part of narratives that describe the working class, however, is that the upper and middle classes have moved left at an even faster rate over the same time period, making it seem like working class voters have become more conservative over that time.
Second, relative to the middle and upper classes, economic populist policies resonate more with working-class voters, while socially progressive policies resonate less. While our first finding means that the working class is still within reach of the Democratic Party, the second makes clear that campaigns centered on economically progressive policies maximize their chances of winning working-class votes. Our report shows the overwhelming popularity of a host of economic populist policies. Increasing the minimum wage, increasing government spending on healthcare and social security, protecting jobs with import limits, and spending more on the poor are all examples of policies that we found resonate with an overwhelming majority of the working class.
Our analysis challenges oft-repeated stereotypes about the supposed conservative drift of the working-class. For example, there are many who seem certain that the economic policies that helped propel Zohran Mamdani to victory in New York City’s recent Democratic mayoral primary would be disastrous outside of the city’s liberal bubble.
That conventional wisdom doesn’t hold up in polling. For example, we found that about 1 out of every 5 working-class people who voted for President Donald Trump in 2020 also favored a four-policy package that included increasing income taxes on million-dollar-per-year earners, federal spending on public schools, federal spending on social security, and the federal minimum wage. Even more surprising, support for a millionaire’s tax—part of Mamdani’s campaign but not his challenger Andrew Cuomo’s—was 44% among working-class 2020 Trump voters. This is only one example, but we’ve identified quite a few ways Democrats can appeal to working-class voters without sacrificing a strong economic program.
Our analysis shows that winning back working class votes from the GOP is still possible. And doing so does not require abandoning the bedrock principles of the Democratic Party by championing regressive social policies. It does, however, require leading with bread-and-butter economic policies that are overwhelmingly popular with working-class voters. The potential for the Democratic party to win back the support it needs to turn the tide on Trumpism is clear from our report. Let’s hope the Democrats pay attention.
