The Left’s Coalition Crisis

Understanding the Divide Between Working Class and College Educated Voters, and How to Bridge it

Jared Abbott and Joan Williams have a new report out today on the class divide on the Left and what might be done about it. The analysis provides among the most comprehensive and up-to-date portrait of the various class-based attitude gaps that have become major obstacles for progressive politics, and was featured on NPR’s Morning Edition.

A key finding of this report is that college-educated liberals live in a class bubble where virtually everyone agrees with them on culture and climate issues—but working-class people don’t. This makes it very difficult for liberal college grads to see that their views reflect a particular class position, and that people who are situated elsewhere in the class hierarchy will typically hold different positions on issues that college-educated liberals care about deeply.

The researchers developed an original survey to explore the various attitude gaps between the broad working-class (defined as non-college educated, middle income workers) and the liberal upper-middle-class (Democratic-leaning college graduates with a household income in the top 25%).

The survey finds that there’s very little overlap between the priorities of the college-educated voters that make up the Democratic Party’s base, and the concerns of the working-class voters that Democrats must win to be competitive in swing states again. Working-class voters are alarmed about rising prices, declining job opportunities, and public safety. College-educated voters overwhelmingly prioritize democracy, social justice issues and the climate. To build a tent big enough to fit both groups of voters, the Democratic establishment and the Party’s left flank both need to start doing things differently, Abbott and Williams found.

“Progressives and moderates are constantly arguing about what the Democratic Party should do to court working class voters. Do we shift to the left or the center to win them back? We’re seeing this play out in the primaries in Michigan and Wisconsin right now. But, what we found is that they are both wrong,” said Abbott and Williams in a statement. “Democrats must center economic concerns again, on that we all seem to agree. But, centrists have argued that Democrats must also abandon deeply held beliefs on social issues to win back working-class voters. This is not only incorrect, according to our study, but this could also cost Democrats among their college-educated base for whom these social justice policies are a top priority. On the other hand, the Left’s economic agenda often gets lost under alienating messages around social justice. While our research found that Democrats need not abandon social issues to broaden their coalition, they do have to be open to compromises on both messaging and policy priorities in order to bring working class voters into the tent.”

When it comes to messaging on social issues, Williams and Abbott found that Democrats need to speak more consistently to working-class values. Their research revealed that these values could be categorized as ‘hard work,’ ‘family,’ ‘loyalty to community and country,’ and ‘physical security.’ The survey also specifically tested a range of social justice issues with the goal of increasing support among working class voters. Among the strongest issue-specific findings:

• Police Accountability: Working-class voters overwhelmingly believe that racism in policing is a problem, but physical security is a very high priority; some working-class people face real violence in their communities and many more working-class people worry about it. The survey found that a pledge to “put more well-trained officers in high-crime areas while enforcing strict rules so bad cops face consequences” garnered 82% working-class support.

• Immigration: Support for a path to citizenship rose from 48% to 70% when the policy was framed around immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least 10 years, held jobs, paid taxes, contributed to their communities, and kept out of trouble.

• Climate: Support for climate initiatives rose from 59% to 76% when the policy was framed around lowering energy costs, creating good blue-collar jobs, rebuilding American industry, and remaining competitive with China.

• Trans Youth in Sports: Only 20% of the working class supports trans girls on girls’ sports teams. Through changes in messaging that focused on working-class values, Abbott and Williams raised support to 43 percent. However, that’s still much lower than the overwhelming working-class support they found for allowing LGBTQ couples to adopt children and prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ in jobs and housing, both of which speak to working-class values of ‘family’ and ‘hard work.’ When it comes to building support for LGBTQ rights, the solution is not to ‘go to center,’ William and Abbott argue, but it is to shift the focus from girls’ sports to anti-discrimination guarantees.

In addition to offering lessons to the Left on social justice issues, the report also critiques the Democratic establishment for its past failures on economic messaging. Specifically, Abbott and Williams call out the Inflation Reduction Act for dressing up a climate bill as something it was not. Today, only about a quarter of working-class respondents say the bill helped the U.S. economy or working-class people. Abbott and Williams counsel that, in the future, Democrats need to offer clear, tangible solutions that speak to working-class concerns about prices and declining job opportunities. Anything that’s seen as an attempt to manipulate voters will only increase the trust gap between working-class voters and Democrats, they argue in the report.

Williams and Abbott worked with a non-partisan firm to conduct the survey in February 2026. The poll interviewed nearly 5,800 Americans, with extra samples of working-class voters of color. They defined working-class voters as the middle 50 percent of Americans whose incomes range from roughly $40,000 to $100,000. Abbott and Williams have both conducted extensive research on the working class for several decades.

An exhaustive analysis, this report explores major class-based fault lines on culture, climate, crime, globalization, how best to navigate them and where and when to change tactics. Click below to download.

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