Voters trusted President Donald Trump to handle the economy, but after eight months of wild and costly tariff policies, attacks on independent institutions like the Federal Reserve Board, and massive government layoffs, even some members of his base are unhappy with him. Why did they trust him in the first place, though? Recent history shows that Democratic administrations preside over much better economies than Republican ones, yet voters continue to trust the GOP more on the issue. It’s been one of the top reasons voters without college educations have defected to Trump’s GOP: They think he’s better for the economy, and therefore better for them.
Melissa Morales, the founder and CEO of Somos Votantes, an independent Latino voter outreach and engagement group, thinks she knows why. Her organization has canvassed Latino voters, many of them working class, since its founding in 2019. What she hears is that the Democratic Party supports programs that help the poor and the needy, and voters who work one, two, or even three jobs and struggle to make ends meet don’t think of themselves that way.
“I always use the example of the Child Tax credit, which was game-changing for families,” Morales said of the program that was temporarily extended under President Joe Biden during the pandemic. “The Child Tax Credit did an incredible amount to uplift working-class people in this country. But the way that Democrats talked about it was that [it] was going to lift 40 percent of children out of poverty.… So when people hear that frame, they hear, ‘This is a program for poor people.’”
At this moment, with voters increasingly dissatisfied with Trump’s governance—including the first government shutdown since he was last in office—Democrats need to think about how to reframe their economic policies so they resonate more with those voters. Because while it’s true that Democrats support programs that help low-income families, and their base supports those policies, the truth is that many working-class voters don’t see themselves represented in Democratic rhetoric even when it applies to them.
A new poll sheds light on this. The Working Class Project, which surveys voters who identify as working class, found that Democratic messages about rewarding hard work and getting ahead were more appealing than messages about reforming the system or going after billionaires. While other polling does consistently show that most voters think the very rich are overpaid and inequality is a problem, focus groups and polling from The Working Class Project illustrate how Democrats can risk vilifying the rich too much and make it seem like they don’t want people to be rich and successful.
The recent poll shows that voters also don’t have a lot of confidence in Democrats even on issues consistent with the party’s messaging. For instance, a minority of respondents believe Democrats want to fix a broken system, stand up to corporations who take advantage of people, stand up to corruption, or want to eliminate government waste. But more than anything, voters don’t think Democrats want people to be rich and successful (the party is 15 points underwater on the issue). In light of this, messages that focus on how to help working-class voters with immediate concerns like cost of living can carry more weight with suspicious voters than promises to engage in longer-term projects like creating more equality or making the system fairer.
Some of these seeming contradictions also have to do with the imprecise definition of “working class.” While some pundits have defined it as any voter without a college degree, that’s a broad category that can include everyone from service workers to rural small business owners who didn’t need a degree to carry on their family trade. It can also include restaurant owners or truck drivers, blue-collar careers that include many non-college educated workers and may encompass many income levels. Researchers tend to define working class as a socioeconomic category that looks at income, background, and the type of work someone does, but voters increasingly have a simpler definition: A working-class voter is a voter who works. While most Americas identify as middle class—regardless of their income—over the past few election cycles an increasing number of Americans identified as working class (though that self-identification has dipped a bit this year, as it has become more partisan).
Republicans tout their economic approach as pro-business because they cut regulations and taxes, which many voters tend to believe is good for the economy overall (despite evidence to the contrary). But that doesn’t mean all working-class voters, however they’re defined, think the GOP is looking out for them. In addition to polling that shows voters remain unhappy with the state of the economy, polling from Somos Votantes shows that his support has collapsed among Latinos, especially young men, since Trump has taken office.
The Democratic Party needs to find a way to capitalize on voter disapproval of Trump while allowing them to embrace their identity. The working-class identity “is so important to people,” Morales said. “It’s almost like a love language to their families, that they contribute by working hard and providing.” She feels that Democrats can and should talk about the policies they champion in a way that includes workers and the rewards of work. “Often, we feel like hard work has been exploited in the past,” Morales said, which can make it difficult for Democrats to talk about. “But there is a way to talk about it in a respectful way, that is that your hard work should result in a good life for you and your family.”
The government shutdown provides a good opportunity. Extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, and rolling back cuts to other health care programs so that more workers can access health care at affordable prices, will help to close the affordability gap and make workers feel like they’re able to pay for what they need rather than accepting a handout. “When you have working-class, middle-class Americans facing a doubling of their premiums, that is just a base concern that humans have,” said Neera Tanden said, a Biden administration alumnus and the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress.
Health care is one part of the affordability crisis, but everything from homeownership to a Starbucks coffee is increasingly difficult to afford. Democrats can work harder to connect that sense of struggle to the idea that working hard is a solution to those problems. “People do not see themselves explicitly in our message,” Morales said. “We’re expecting them to read between lines that they’re not going to read between.”
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