The Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP) recently tested a variety of political messages on voters in Pennsylvania, a key battleground for both campaigns, to determine what kind of rhetoric is working to nudge blue-collar voters toward Harris. In collaboration with the polling firm YouGov, we polled a representative sample of 1,000 eligible voters in Pennsylvania between 24 September and 2 October 2024. We asked respondents to evaluate different political messages that they might hear from Harris and Trump, and to score them on a scale of favorability.
In line with our past research, we found that economically focused messages and messages that employed a populist narrative fared best relative to Trump-style messages about Biden’s competence, immigration, corrupt elites, critical race theory, inflation, election integrity and tariffs. No surprise there. Meanwhile, Harris’s messages on abortion and immigration fared worse than any of the economic or populist messages we tested.
Yet no message was as unpopular as the one we call the “democratic threat” message.
Much like Harris’s recent rhetoric, this message called on voters to “defend our freedom and our democracy” against a would-be dictator in the form of Trump. It named Trump as “a criminal” and “a convicted felon” and warned of his plans to punish his political enemies. Of the seven messages we tested, each relating to a major theme of the Harris campaign, the “democratic threat” message polled dead last.
It was the least popular message relative to the average support for Trump’s messages. And it was the least popular message among the working-class constituencies Harris and the Democrats need most.
Among blue-collar voters, a group that leans Republican, the democratic threat message was a whopping 14.4 points underwater relative to the average support for Trump’s messages. And among more liberal-leaning service and clerical workers, it was also the least popular message, finishing only 1.6 percentage points ahead of the Trump average. Even among professionals, the most liberal of the bunch and the group that liked the message the best, the message barely outperformed Trump’s messages.
The exact opposite is true for the “strong populist” message we tested. This message, which combined progressive economic policy suggestions with a strong condemnation of “billionaires”, “big corporations” and the “politicians in Washington who serve them”, tested best with blue-collar workers, service and clerical workers and professionals.
If we break down the results by party we find much the same story. Republicans – who didn’t prefer any of Harris’s messages over Trump’s messages – preferred the strong populist message the most. And they overwhelmingly rejected the democratic threat message, on average preferring Trump’s messages over this by over 75 points. Among independents – an imperfect proxy for nonpartisan voters – the strong populist message was best received, while the democratic threat message was least favored. Only Democrats strongly preferred the democratic threat message, and even then it was among their least favorite.
….Moreover, the distaste for the democratic threat message among working people, and the total obliviousness to that distaste among campaign officials, is evidence itself of the huge disconnect between Harris and the working-class voters she desperately needs to win. Worse, every ad or speech spent hectoring about the Trumpian threat is one less opportunity for Harris to focus on her popular economic policies; one less opportunity to lean into a populist “people v plutocrats” narrative that actually does resonate with the working class.
The electoral college has become a gun held to the head of US democracy
Lawrence Douglas
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If Harris loses, it’ll be because the campaign and the candidate represent a party that is now fundamentally alien to many working people – a party that has given up on mobilizing working people around shared class frustrations and aspirations. A party incapable of communicating a simple, direct, progressive economic policy agenda. A party so beholden to a contradictory mix of interests that, in the effort to appease everyone and offend no one, top strategists have rolled out a vague, unpopular and uninspiring pitch seemingly designed to help them replay the results of the 2016 election.
Ironically, if Democrats are keen to defend democracy they would do well to stop talking about it. Instead, they should try to persuade voters on an economic vision that seeks to end offshoring and mass layoffs, revitalize manufacturing, cap prescription drug prices and put working families first.
“In other words,” Guastella concludes, “they should sound less like Democrats and more like populists.”
Bernie Sanders said something this week that really upset this yellow-dog Democrat, so I wrote about it at New York:
At a time when plenty of people have advice for unhappy progressive Democrats, one of their heroes, Bernie Sanders, had a succinct message: Don’t love the party, leave it. Inan interview with the New York Times, he previewed a barnstorming tour he has undertaken with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but made it clear he wouldn’t be asking audiences to rally ’round the Democratic Party. “One of the aspects of this tour is to try to rally people to get engaged in the political process and run as independents outside of the Democratic Party,” Sanders said.
In one respect, that isn’t surprising. Though he has long aligned with the Democratic Party in Congress and has regularly backed its candidates, Sanders has always self-identified as an independent, even when he filed to run for president as a Democrat in 2020. Now, as before, he seems to regard the Democratic Party as inherently corrupted by its wealthy donor base, per the Times:
“During the interview on Wednesday, Mr. Sanders repeatedly criticized the influence of wealthy donors and Washington consultants on the party. He said that while Democrats had been a force for good on social issues like civil rights, women’s rights and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, they had failed on the economic concerns he has dedicated his political career to addressing.”
Still, when Democrats are now already perceived as losing adherents, and as many progressives believe their time to take over the party has arrived, Sanders’s counsel is both oddly timed and pernicious. Yes, those on the left who choose independent status may still work with Democrats on both legislative and electoral projects, much as Sanders does. And they may run in and win Democratic primaries on occasion without putting on the party yoke. But inevitably, refusing to stay formally within the Democratic tent will cede influence to centrists and alienate loyalist voters as well. And in 18 states, voters who don’t register as Democrats may be barred from voting in Democratic primaries, which proved a problem for Sanders during his two presidential runs.
More fundamentally, Democrats need both solidarity and stable membership at this moment with the MAGA wolf at the door and crucial off-year and midterm elections coming up. Staying in the Democratic ranks doesn’t mean giving up progressive principles or failing to challenge timid or ineffective leadership. To borrow an ancient cigarette-ad slogan, it’s a time when it’s better to “fight than switch.”
That said, there may be certain deep-red parts of the country where the Democratic brand is so toxic that an independent candidacy could make some sense for progressives. The example of 2024 independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn of Nebraska, who ran a shockingly competitive (if ultimately unsuccessful) race against Republican incumbent Deb Fischer, turned a lot of heads. But while Osborn might have been a “populist” by most standards, he wasn’t exactly what you’d call a progressive, and in fact, centrist and progressive Nebraska Democrats went along with Osborn as a very long shot. They didn’t abandon their party; they just got out of the way.
Someday the popularity of electoral systems without party primaries or with ranked-choice voting may spread to the point where candidates and voters alike will gradually shed or at least weaken party labels. Then self-identifying as an independent could be both principled and politically pragmatic.
But until then, it’s important to understand why American politics have regularly defaulted to a two-party system dating all the way back to those days when the Founders tried strenuously to avoid parties altogether. In a first-past-the-post system where winners take all, there’s just too much at stake to allow those with whom you are in agreement on the basics to splinter. That’s particularly true when the other party is rigidly united in subservience to an authoritarian leader. Sanders is one of a kind in his ability to keep his feet both within and outside the Democratic Party. His example isn’t replicable without making a bad situation for progressives a whole lot worse.
