Roundup: July 25, 2025
News and Views Concerning Working-Class Politics PLUS a plea for support.
It’s been a busy week. Our latest report (which you can find here), published on Monday, has been featured in a dozen or so essays (some of which you can find below). If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, please make the time. It’s worth it.
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Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Below you’ll find a range of news and views that concern working-class politics, class dealignment, and political strategy. Many are written by research associates and friends of the Center for Working-Class Politics.
What the Working Class Really Believes
by Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect
“The reasons for the erosion of Democratic Party support within the American working class is a topic on which seemingly everyone has an opinion. […] It’s been the subject of polling, of polling analysis, of exegesis of polling analysis. But nobody had sought to clarify these issues by assembling a numerically informed view of the evolution of public opinion during the past 65 years until the Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP), along with Jacobin, undertook a study that they’re releasing today.”
Democrats Can Win Back the Working-Class with Economic Populism
by Sean Mason, Inequality.org
“…relative to the middle and upper classes, economic populist policies resonate more with working-class voters, while socially progressive policies resonate less. While our first finding means that the working-class is still within reach of the Democratic party, the second makes clear that campaigns centered on economically progressive policies maximize their chances of winning working-class votes. Our report shows the overwhelming popularity of a host of economic populist policies. Increasing the minimum wage, increasing government spending on healthcare and social security, protecting jobs with import limits, and spending more on the poor are all examples of policies that we found resonate with an overwhelming majority of the working-class.”
The Working Class Is More Left-Wing Than You Think
by Timothy Noah, The New Republic
“On predistribution, the working class has always stood further left than the middle and upper classes. That gap has been shrinking since 2008, not because the working class is changing its view but rather because the middle and upper classes are catching up. On matters like the value of union organizing, it’s the proletariat that has been lecturing to the Brahmin left, and the message is starting to get across. The dynamic is similar with redistribution, except that in this instance the middle and upper classes not only caught up with the working class but surpassed it in supporting, for instance, higher taxes on the wealthy and more government spending on health care.”
Democrats act like elections are complicated. They’re not.
by Sean Mason, Jacobin
“This is hardly the first time that research, including previous research conducted by the CWCP and Jacobin, has uncovered strong signals that campaigning on economic populism increases a candidate’s chances of winning working-class voters. Democratic Party leaders and their hired strategists would like us to think that things aren’t that straightforward. Rather than embracing the massive potential of economic populism to reshape the American political landscape in their favor, they erect intraparty obstacles to candidates promoting it. They do this for a combination of ideological and structural reasons, not least because wealthy special interests are deeply embedded in the party’s machinery.”
According to our research, 11% of Trump voters can be won back. Here’s how
by Dustin Guastella, The Guardian
“And what about blue-collar Trump voters? […] In fact, a lot of them hold progressive views across a range of economic issues. We found that “over 20% of working-class Trump voters were in favor of an economic policy package that included increasing federal funding for public schools, increasing federal funding for social security, and increasing the minimum wage.” Of course, many of these same voters have such conservative views on social issues that they would never vote for a Democrat. But are there any working-class populists in the Trump coalition who hold socially moderate attitudes? There are. Eleven per cent of them, to be exact.”
Working-Class Voters Are Not Centrists
by Isaac Rabbani, The Nation
“…there may be a real trade-off for Democrats between winning working-class and non-working-class voters.
Yet the report also suggests that such trade-offs are not the whole story. This is because a significant portion of the working class generally agrees with Democratic voters on the issues, but votes for Republicans. Specifically, of working-class voters who voted for Trump in 2020, a whopping 20 percent support a higher minimum wage, increased social welfare spending, increased public school spending, and a tax on millionaires. Of that group, roughly half hold moderate-to-liberal views on cultural issues.”
The Working-Class Trump Voters Who Can Still Be Won
by Christopher Altamura, Jacobin
“These voters — economically and politically discontent but not driven by authoritarianism — are potentially persuadable. But reaching them requires a clear, consistent, and genuine message about how progressives will fight for them and alongside them to improve their lives. This means not being afraid to engage in direct confrontations with the rich and powerful against austerity and authoritarianism. It means emphasizing job security, wages, health care, housing, and education in language that makes it clear whose side you’re on. It also means choosing messengers who can credibly make that case: candidates who come from working-class backgrounds or have shown a real commitment to economic justice.”
How Dems can win back MAGA workers
by Dustin Guastella, UnHerd
As the party’s core support has climbed a few rungs up the class ladder, the interests, values, and attitudes of Democratic Party mouthpieces increasingly reflect this group. Not only do many top Democrats have no clue what working-class voters actually want, but they have fewer of them in their districts, and almost none in their offices, whom they might ask. Worse, even when the occasional liberal turns to the working class, there are strong headwinds preventing the message from becoming dominant in the party. […] But if party elites have any desire of regaining a majority and pursuing a progressive policy agenda, they had better start listening to blue-collar voters. The quickest path back to power for the Democrats is to embrace a genuine social populism, against their donors wishes, and against the inclinations of many of their professionals. Indeed, doing so is the only shot they have of winning a working-class majority.