NEW REPORT: Populism Wins Pennsylvania
NEW REPORT: Populism Wins Pennsylvania
Full results from our latest report, fielded by YouGov and released by Jacobin Magazine.
A unique new study by the Center for Working-Class Politics, Jacobin, and YouGov highlights how economic populist messaging resonates with working-class voters in Pennsylvania on the eve of the November elections.
To understand how Harris and Democrats in general can connect more effectively with working-class voters, the CWCP designed a survey testing a range of key messaging approaches among 1,000 registered voters in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania.
The survey, fielded by YouGov between September 24 and October 2, 2024, had two primary goals: first, to test which of Harris’s own actual messaging styles performed best in Pennsylvania, and second, informed by the CWCP’s previous surveys — Commonsense Solidarity (2021), Trump’s Kryptonite (2023), and Where Are All the Left Populists? (2024) — to test whether Harris’ messages could be improved, either by employing stronger populist rhetoric or placing more emphasis on progressive economic policy.
Here are some key findings:
All populist and economic-centered messages outperform those that focus on immigration and abortion, and they dramatically outperform messages foregrounding Trump as a threat to democracy. These results hold across partisan lines and largely across class lines, measured by occupation, education, and income.
Messaging around Trump as a threat to democracy underperformed all other Harris messages among virtually every group. While the strongest message we tested was supported by 58% of respondents, the “threat to democracy” message received just 49% support overall.
Strong economic populist messaging that goes beyond Harris’s current rhetoric outperformed all other messaging among Pennsylvania voters. For instance, while strong populist messaging outperformed average Trump messaging by 3 points among independents, Harris’s current “soft populist” messaging underperformed by 2 points, and Trump as a threat to democracy underperformed average Trump messaging by 9 points.
Strong populist messaging performed particularly well among working-class voters — 57% of blue-collar workers and 60% of clerical and service sector workers supported the strong economic populist message. This message dramatically outperformed messaging focused on Trump as a threat to democracy.
Strong populist messaging did not lead to a trade-off between base voters and swing voters. This message received the highest support among African Americans, urban voters, and Democrats as a whole, and trailed no more than 2 points behind the preferred messages of women, higher-income, and highly educated respondents as well as service workers and professionals.
You can read the full report here. You can view complete crosstabs here.
Contact:
Authors: jared@workingclasspolitics.org
Press: publicity@workingclasspolitics.org
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