A range of Democratic and progressive groups are all working on the same problem — how to win back working-class voters.
For the Democratic Party, the loss of blue collar support since President Donald Trump entered the political arena represents a crisis that threatens its prospects for a generation. But how to fix it is a riddle that could take years to answer.
“This is an existential issue for our party, and an existential issue for the country,” Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) said at a Center for American Progress event held Wednesday afternoon. “So we have to solve it.”
The event, titled “Representing Working-Class Voters,” featured Casar along with Rep. Nikki Budzinski (D-IL) discussing ways to “promote a policy agenda for today’s working class.”
While Democrats have only gotten stronger with college-educated voters over the last decade, the majority of the electorate does not have a bachelor’s degree and has been slipping toward the GOP.
In 2024, that trend accelerated and included significant numbers of blue-collar black and Hispanic voters, especially men. A big question now is whether Democrats should adjust their policies to match these voters’ interests, or whether they simply message to them better.
Casar said he heard from many people last year who voted Democratic in 2016 and 2020 but were planning to vote for Trump in 2024. When he asked why, they told him they knew Trump was a jerk but believed he would support their economic interests, while Democrats were focused on “other stuff.”
“I said, ‘So, you mean like, gay stuff?,’” Casar recalled. “And they said, ‘Yea.’”
He’d tell them that while he supports the LGBT community, his top priority was making sure they had steady work and that their children could expect a brighter future. Still, Casar acknowledged the message was at times lost on the 2024 campaign trail.
Today, winning back those lost blue-collar voters is top of mind for Democrats across the country.
Along with the Center for American Progress, former Kamala Harris spokesman Ian Sams is spearheading an entity called The Working Class Project, which is hosting seminars with various voter groups to divine their political wants and needs.
A recent dispatch, for example, noted that Democratic support among black men fell from 95% in 2012 to 79% last year, and all the way down to 75% for young black men, a historically low figure.
In swing state Wisconsin, black voter support for Trump more than doubled in some areas. Trump’s support stood at 21%, while Harris’s was 77%. That’s up from four years ago, when Trump won just 8% of black voters in the Badger State, according to an NBC News exit poll.
Sams, who was tasked with defending former President Joe Biden against special counsel Robert Hur’s damaging characterization of Biden’s decline, held focus groups with working-class black voters to get their insights.
“It’s the pandering they do to us,” one respondent said. “When Biden was running, it’s ‘you ain’t black’ if you don’t vote for me. It’s Hillary and the hot sauce. We know, at the end of the day, you’re not really for us.”
The problem is so vast that Sams pitched his group as “the largest research effort to understanding why working class voters are trending away,” indicating there are many competitors in the space.
Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, staked his place in February with a memo saying the Democratic Party “always has been and always will be the party of the worker.”
“I believe the canary in the coal mine for what happened on Nov. 5 was the recent showing that, for the first time in modern history, Americans now see the Republicans as the party of the working class and Democrats as the party of the elites,” Martin wrote. “As the Trump agenda fails our nation’s working communities, we have to take seriously the job of repairing and restoring the perceptions of our party and our brand.”
Martin is the son of a teenage mother and says programs advocated by Democrats helped his family not only survive but get ahead. He’s one of many party leaders who wants to see Democrats center that working class message going forward.
That’s a big shift from the party’s message just months ago. Previous DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison advocated a strong identity politics focus not only before but even after the party’s losses in last November’s elections.
“When I wake up in the morning, when I look in the mirror, when I step out the door, I can’t rub this off,” Harrison, who is black, said during a speech in December while waving his hand in front of his face. “This is who I am. This is how the world perceives me.”
Following 2024 disaster, Democrats look to reclaim status as ‘party of the worker’
But Martin’s working class memo did not include the terms “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” or “gender.” It mentioned identity only once, saying that labor unions “protect workers regardless of identity.”
Republicans say their gains are well-earned.
“No,” CNN commentator Scott Jennings said when asked if Democrats will get blue-collar voters back.
“You’ve got working-class voters in every racial demographic moving towards the Republican Party,” Jennings said, “because they think the Republican Party has strong leaders who are operating out of a position of common sense.”
Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich made a similar point in a recent Fox News appearance.
“There is a very profound, underlying cultural civil war underway,” Gingrich said. “The American people increasingly are on the side of Donald Trump, because they believe he stands up against the very values that are at the heart of the Obama-Biden system.”
Gingrich suggested that Democrats are doubling down on failed figures like Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and fearmongering about GOP cuts to Medicaid because they “can’t win any honest debate.” Meanwhile, Trump is boosting blue-collar workers by reshoring manufacturing and eliminating taxes on tips and overtime.
Some Democrats aren’t so sure.
A Center for American Progress analysis released this week argues that both college and non-college voters prefer progressive economic policies such as higher minimum wages, stronger unions, higher taxes on the rich, better infrastructure, and a larger social safety net.
Yet the report acknowledged that 56% of working-class voters backed Trump last fall.
Jacob Neiheisel, an expert on political communication and campaigns at the University at Buffalo, said that changing party perceptions is hard to do once they’re formed.
“Though the U.S. electorate isn’t generally credited with being overly ‘class conscious,’ it is probably a stronger force than most have recognized,” Neiheisel said. “I’m not sure how they might go about gaining back lost ground among working class voters.”
He also pointed to historic preferences that a majority of voters have toward Democratic priorities, but suggested execution has become an issue.
“The electorate has long preferred Democrats’ positions on key issues,” he said, “but they seem to have grown wary about the party’s ability to bring about positive changes.”