In “Will Democrats Fail to See the Working Class Again? The Democratic base and working-class swing voters want action on the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid and the expanded monthly Child Tax Credit,” Stanley B. Greenberg writes: “House Democrats are about to announce their “You Deserve Better” agenda that will include a range of initiatives they promise to pass if they win control of the House in November. Understandably, Democratic leaders are trying to regain support and trust with the diverse Democratic base and the key working-class swing voters and union households that moved to support Donald Trump in 2024…According to surveys conducted by Democracy Corps, the most important policies in that agenda should be saving the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid, and re-enacting the expanded monthly Child Tax Credit. But why is that not obvious for other researchers?…(I should disclose that my wife is Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, one of the principal sponsors of the expanded monthly Child Tax Credit.)…Democracy Corps conducted a post-election national survey in November 2024 with 2,357 actual voters, including 528 Black, 503 Hispanic, and 314 Asian voters. The survey is linked here and deals with many reasons for the disastrous election that re-elected Trump. The election was close, and we asked respondents to choose which were the most important reasons to vote for Kamala Harris. The campaign spoke about democracy and risk of fascism, but across the base groups, the top reasons were saving the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid, followed by “her help with the cost of living, like the monthly Child Tax Credit, the cost of housing and small business.” More here.

From “Democrats Who Win the Working Class: Profiles From the Seven Battleground States” by Robin Johnson, Stuart Malec and Jolie Libert at progressive policy.org: “If Democrats want to become competitive again outside the blue islands of major metro areas and college towns, their single most important task will be winning back the Americans without college degrees who have abandoned the party in droves during recent decades. This report brings together interviews with dozens of politicians who’ve already shown they can do just that: 28 state legislators from seven battleground states who, like Miller, have managed to prevail in competitive, heavily working-class districts. We asked them about the issues they focused on, how their voters view the national party, and what on-the-ground tactics they relied on to win…While these lawmakers represented disparate corners of America, they were remarkably consistent in their message. Their working-class constituents, they said, are intensely focused on basic pocketbook concerns like the cost of groceries and health care, and many believe Democrats are too preoccupied by fights over cultural issues like LGBTQ rights and abortion — an assessment that dovetails with much of the polling that followed Kamala Harris’s loss in the 2024 election. To overcome the national party’s baggage, these lawmakers often campaign as practical problem solvers, rather than rigid partisans…“Being a moderate formed the core of my strategy,” says Wisconsin State Sen. Kristin Alfheim, whose district centers the Fox Cities region. “People would ask which party I was from and my response was, ‘Should it matter?’ Getting past that first initial knee-jerk response was critical to getting into what matters for voters — kitchen table issues.”…The lawmakers who spoke with PPI could hardly be more different from the left-wing populists who’ve captivated the national media this summer. Insurgent candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America have won a handful of primaries in New York and Denver by knocking off more established opponents, while progressive favorite Graham Platner won Maine’s primary vote before dropping out over allegations of sexual assault. In the Midwest, left-wing favorite Abdul El-Sayed won a narrow victory in the Michigan primary.” More here.

Monica Potts argues that “The Term Working Class Is Useless: Too many political analysts and pollsters are relying on education to define the working class, and it’s leading us to the wrong conclusions” at The New Republic: “The Center for Working-Class Politics, a relatively new research institute helmed by political scientist Jared Abbott, and the Equality Action Center’s Joan C. Williams released a report Monday about how progressive candidates could win working-class voters. The report detailed a survey of 40,000 voters produced by the socialist magazine Jacobin (whose editorial director, Bhaskar Sunkara, is on the CWCP’s board), and its analysis relied on an almost laughable definition of the working class: “those with no four-year college degree and a household income in roughly the middle 60% of the national distribution (about $30,000 to $150,000).” The report compared that group’s responses to a middle- and upper-class group defined as those with a four-year degree and a household income of at least $80,000…By this logic, a household with a social worker married to a teacher, together making just over $100,000 a year, is not working class, but a master electrician making six figures is. The report thus repeats a common, fatal flaw in how many people define the working class today: relying largely on education level leaves us with an income range so wide it tells us little about how much those folks struggle—or not—to make ends meet…I can’t really fault the CWCP, though. The left’s collective freakout over working-class voters—mainly, but not exclusively, “white working-class” voters—began in earnest when Donald Trump pulled off his surprise win in the 2016 election. So many years, so many takes about what happened and how to win those voters back. And throughout this time, writers, pundits, and voters themselves have tossed around the term working class without remembering or thinking about what it means. It’s now a term that doesn’t mean anything at all. And we should stop using it, because it’s been used as a sloppy shorthand for a group that’s so broad, varied, and voting on so many different issues that we’re often misdiagnosing our political and economic problems…” More here.

Read Michael Sainato’s “Revenge of the labor movement: Democrats with union backgrounds aim to retake Congress” at The Guardian for insights on the midterms. An excerpt: “The US labor movement is having a banner election year…More than three dozen nominees for open House and Senate races across the US have backgrounds as labor union representatives or members…Several nominees are running in heavily blue districts, making it almost certain they will win the seat in November’s midterms, while others are in highly contested races that are likely to determine control of the House and possibly the Senate. Most are Democrats, though some are running as independents…The early success of so many candidates with ties to labor comes as Democrats work to rebuild their support among working-class voters, centering their campaign messaging around affordability issues…But the messenger matters, too. “In a political environment that’s been dominated by wealthy elites for decades, union candidates provide a level of trust and credibility that’s simply unmatched,” Steve Smith, a spokesperson for the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, told the Guardian. “These candidates are at long last returning the levers of power to the people.”…A 2024 study by Cal State and UCLA researchers found working-class voters are 6.4 percentage points more likely to prefer a political candidate with a working-class occupation over one with an upper-class occupation…Union candidates invoked pro-worker themes 159% more than non-union candidates, the report found. Running more union members as candidates, its authors argued, could increase the representation ordinary Americans have in Congress, by elevating people who can speak to and deliver on issues that affect the working class.” More here.