North Carolina is one of the most important battlegrounds on the map this cycle. The state holds several competitive U.S. House races and represents one of the Democratic Party’s most important bids to flip a Senate seat. Winning in North Carolina is crucial to Democrats’ success this November — and the working class will be crucial to winning in North Carolina.

This week, American Bridge is launching our campaign to win in North Carolina, with new ads in the state’s 3rd, 5th, 9th, and 11th congressional districts.

North Carolina is the latest investment in our multi-million dollar midterm ad campaign. We’re targeting these swing working class voters in nearly 20 key races where we’re aiming to expand the battleground by putting traditionally safe Republican seats — including districts rated R+3 or higher — in play this November. This investment builds on extensive voter research from this Working Class Project.

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BRINGING IT ALL BACK TO THE KITCHEN TABLE

If you’ve been following this project for a while, this should come as no surprise: costs remain the number one concern on these voters’ minds.

Working-class voters in North Carolina are feeling everything get more expensive and are seeing no relief. Life feels unsustainable, and instead of lower costs they’ve just been given chaos. To make matters worse, they see the Iran war driving up their costs even further, and as a sign that Trump doesn’t have the right priorities. That contrast — between their own struggles to afford groceries and everyday necessities and the president’s focus on foreign conflicts — leaves these voters feeling betrayed.

Our ads are tapping into this feeling of betrayal — pressing the narrative that Republicans have abandoned their constituents in North Carolina while costs continue to go up. Every message has the same throughline: Republicans’ wrong priorities are costing North Carolina’s families.

Health care is another major thread. It’s an issue North Carolina voters responded to viscerally in our focus groups, with many sharing their own horror stories about trying to afford health insurance for their families. We’re messaging directly on Medicaid cuts and health care costs, ensuring that the connection between Republicans’ votes to cut health care and the high health care costs working class families are facing is explicit.

Kitchen table issues are what these voters are concerned about. They’re a big reason why a lot of these soft partisans voted Republican in 2024, and they’re the reason for the cracks in the GOP’s base today. So kitchen table issues are what we are hammering relentlessly in our ads.

HURRICANE HELENE

Hurricane Helene ties together all of these threads. For western North Carolina in particular, It’s emblematic of financial anxieties, wrong priorities, and politicians who don’t represent the needs of their constituents in a very visceral way for working class voters in the state.

Communities were devastated when Hurricane Helene hit in 2024, and many still haven’t recovered. Voters there feel abandoned by their Republican representatives. The contrast is stark: politicians getting richer and money being spent on a new foreign war and White House ballroom — all while the recovery investment in their own communities is left unfinished.

Natural disasters, especially at a scale like Helene, are the exact type of examples where voters expect their congressmembers to stand up for them and deliver real investment back into their communities. Voters in North Carolina didn’t get that from their Republican representatives or the Trump Administration. And watching their politicians get richer and money flow to other priorities while they still aren’t back on their feet is the ultimate betrayal.

Our ads lean into this betrayal. They converge the wrong priorities and corruption messaging to show that Republicans have abandoned the people they represent — and working class families are paying the price for that abandonment.

PRESSING CORRUPTION

Lastly, as we’ve shared, our focus groups have shown corruption provides a real opening for Democrats with these voters.

We’ve found that corruption messages against Republicans landed as some of the most powerful negatives we tested. These voters are inclined to assume politicians on both sides are corrupt by default — but when they’re given specific, concrete examples of Trump and congressional Republicans taking money from special interests and then voting to protect those interests over their constituents’ pocketbooks, the message cuts through.

We also found that corruption messaging shouldn’t be overly complicated or academic. Politicians are in the pockets of special interests and using their positions to get richer. Meanwhile, the working class gets nothing. It’s a simple message about fairness that directly relates to the issues they feel and care about.

So we’re pressing corruption hard. Our ads highlight how Republicans have gotten richer in office while the people they represent continue to struggle to afford basic necessities. We’re messaging about corruption in a way that resonates with those feelings of fairness and betrayal and tying corruption directly to kitchen table issues.

REAL NORTH CAROLINIANS

Meet Kiara

Kiara is studying to be a social worker. Kiara and her family rely on Medicaid for health care. She is tired of the corruption going on in Washington while North Carolina families like hers have services they rely on cut.

Meet Joe

Joe is a lifelong Greensboro resident. His family are lifelong Republicans and he voted for both Donald Trump and Virginia Foxx. But he is fed up with the corruption and out of touch Republicans getting richer while North Carolinians’ costs keep going up.

Meet Cliff

Cliff is a firefighter from Western North Carolina. His community was devastated when Hurricane Helene hit. He feels abandoned by his Republican congressmember, and is tired of seeing politicians get richer and richer while his community struggles to recover.

Meet Jim

Jim is from Southern Pines and the owner of a small veterinarian business. He has seen his costs rise significantly over the past year, and it’s made it harder for him to keep his business afloat while his Republican congressman has been nonresponsive.

These voters are sick of soaring costs and Washington’s betrayal — and they’re far from alone. Their stories reflect what we’ve heard from working class voters across North Carolina throughout our focus groups.

That’s what this midterm ad campaign is all about: messaging on the issues that matter most to these voters, in a way that this Working Class Project shows actually resonates.

Working class voters in North Carolina are persuadable — but that is not the same as persuaded. The Democratic brand is still weak, and frustration with Republicans does not necessarily translate to enthusiasm for Democrats. But what we do have is an opening — and corruption and cost messaging present an opportunity for Democrats to break through with a group willing to vote for change.

Read more about American Bridge 21st Century’s Midterm Ad Campaign:

The New York Times: A Democratic Super PAC Makes a $50 Million Bet in Republican Strongholds

Associated Press: Democratic group launches ad campaign to help flip control of Congress in midterm elections

Since early 2025, we’ve been listening to working class voters to understand why they’ve trended away from Democrats — and what Democrats can do to win them back. These voters are soft partisans, and Democrats have an opportunity to make gains with them if they can effectively message on the issues that matter to them in a way that resonates. From the beginning of Trump’s term through today, this project has tracked how these voters are responding to the administration and how their views on the Republican agenda are evolving.

This week, on the heels of the anniversary of the Big Beautiful Bill, we’re looking at how working class voters’ views on government programs and the social safety net are shifting — and what Democrats need to do to capitalize on this evolution.

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THE EARLY NARRATIVE: “HANDOUTS”

One of the sharpest criticisms of Democrats in our early 2025 focus groups was that the party is too focused on “handouts.” For many voters, this cut against their working class identity. As we’ve noted before, to these voters, being working class means more than just being in a certain tax bracket, it’s also an identity rooted in the values of hard work and self-sufficiency. Across the country, voters have told us that what distinguishes the working class from the poor, in their eyes, is not needing government assistance.

“The working class gets by without government support, while lower class or poor people rely on the government.” – Virginia voter

These voters want to work hard and get ahead, and a common theme emerged: Republicans were seen as the party of hard work and self-determination, while Democrats were seen as wanting to keep people dependent on government.

“Really hardworking, take pride in working for what they have and don’t want handouts.” – White woman from Maine

“Those of us who don’t depend on government assistance don’t look at Democrats the same way as those who do.” – Black man from North Carolina

These voters viewed Democrats’ emphasis on government programs and the social safety net as a weakness, believing that such programs went to people who didn’t want to work — running counter to their hard-working, self-sufficient mentality.

Fraud and abuse also loomed large in their perception of Democrats and the safety net. In Texas, the old “welfare queen” trope resurfaced among women in our groups.

“I was raising my two boys. I was a single mom. I was not getting child support. I went to try to get food stamps. I was making $17 a week [and was told] that was too much for food stamps when these some other people are driving Cadillacs to the food stamp office, buying cakes and everything.” – White woman from Texas

THE IMMIGRATION CONNECTION

This dynamic was especially pronounced among voters in Texas, where the perception that Democrats were extending “handouts” to undocumented immigrants was a major liability for the Democratic brand. Many of these voters believed undocumented immigrants were receiving Medicaid and other benefits that they themselves could not access — a perceived unfairness that generated real resentment toward the party. Several voters said they received no government benefits at all, or that others were getting more than they were, and pointed specifically to undocumented immigrants receiving “free Medicaid.”

“I don’t think we ought to go broke trying to get health care, if we’re going to give it to people that are walking across the border, but I have to pay $6,000.” – White woman from Texas

Among this group, the Republican framing — that Democrats let government services be abused by undocumented immigrants — was echoed, showing its potency and credibility to these voters. Democrats’ perceived weaknesses on “handouts” and on immigration reinforced each other and loomed large in these conversations.

THE SHIFT

As our focus groups continued and the Big Beautiful Bill became a topic of discussion, there was a change.

When voters learned what was actually in the Big Beautiful Bill — particularly the Medicaid cuts and the rural hospitals put at risk because of them — there was widespread anger at Republicans for slashing the program. They did not start with high awareness of the Medicaid cuts, but when they heard about them, they believed it.

The language of “dependency” and “handouts” disappeared when voters talked about Medicaid or SNAP in the context of these cuts, and so did the framing of abuse. Instead these voters expressed pessimism, and in many cases outrage, that Republicans would cut programs that America’s most vulnerable relied on, with one Republican-leaning voter in Maine saying it would be “political suicide” for Republicans to make these cuts. Some voters said they would not support a member of Congress who voted for these cuts, including some of the most conservative participants.

“We don’t need those cuts to people that are disabled or homebound and can’t take care of themselves…You are going to have more and more people dying because they’re not going to be able to afford health care. It’s already a big deal because our copays went up and our benefits went down.” – White woman from North Carolina

“Taking away. Cutting everything. All the less fortunate people — he’s cutting everything, all the good services.” – Black man from Georgia

“It just makes it seem like he doesn’t care about the people of the country… What about if there’s no people to fight for? Then what is the point? If people can’t afford to send their kids to school and feed them and get health care, everybody’s going to die, and then what are you fighting for?” – Black man from Georgia

“Cut Medicaid, they don’t have anything. It’s a crime.” – White woman from New Hampshire

For many, the difference is proximity to the issue. These voters, their family members, or people in their own communities rely on these programs, primarily Medicaid — and they see and feel the impact of these cuts firsthand.

“I have a son who had a heart transplant. He’s 18 now. He can never own his own business. He’d never be able to afford insurance. He has a preexisting condition. The hoops we go for to make sure he’s covered.” – White man from Maine

“It directly affects my family, as far as Medicaid…Why are we cutting benefits for people that truly need it, and giving breaks to these ginormous corporations where they’re not worried about food, they’re not worried about health?” — White voter from Georgia

“I live it firsthand, not me personally, but I volunteer at a local community shelter, and to see the need of the folks that are coming in now — it’s completely changed over the past two years. Kids are going hungry, adults are going hungry, seniors are going hungry.” – White woman from Iowa

The Republican framing that resonated in earlier focus groups — that Democrats were handing out benefits to people who didn’t want to work and encouraging dependency — became largely overshadowed once voters were confronted with cuts that hit close to home. These voters didn’t see Medicaid and SNAP as purely handouts to begin with, many held favorable views of the programs and knew people in their own lives who relied on them. Their chief complaint was that Democrats didn’t care about rooting out waste and abuse.

But that concern gave way to personal experience. Once voters learned that people they believed deserved benefits would be impacted by these cuts, the criticism of undeserving recipients was no longer at the forefront. When the cuts touch their own lives, when voters can see and feel the impact directly, they don’t view the programs as wasteful or abused.

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR DEMOCRATS

This evolution presents an opening for Democrats. Health care remains one of Democrats’ strongest issues in our message testing, and the environment around it has clearly shifted, giving Democrats a chance to flex that strength on an issue particularly potent with voters right now.

There was once a time when many voters didn’t know exactly what Medicaid was or how it was different from Medicare. That’s not as true anymore. These voters know what Medicaid is and the role it plays in their communities — and once they’re shown the cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill, they become deeply concerned about it being under threat. Medicaid is not seen as a handout but rather a critical part of the health care system.

The task now is to capitalize on the backlash to these cuts without reviving the feeling of “handouts” or dependency that undermined the party’s standing with these same voters just months earlier.

The throughline across our focus groups has been the personal connection voters have to these programs — and, in turn, to the cuts affecting them. Personal stories and real-world anecdotes about how Medicaid and SNAP cuts are impacting hard-working Americans just trying to get ahead make the issue feel less abstract and more tangible to voters. Democrats can drive that messaging to reinforce the connection with voters between themselves and these services — making these cuts a real liability for Republicans that they can’t avoid in November.

Our research also reveals a clear mood among these voters: growing frustration with Republicans’ priorities — driven primarily by the war in Iran and its associated costs.

This week, we’re continuing to look at how campaigns are using working class messaging — highlighting how Democrats are using resonant messaging to turn Republicans’ priorities into a liability, while offering voters a compelling forward vision for the future.

THE WRONG PRIORITIES

As we’ve shared, working class voters are fatigued and feeling betrayed. Our research finds them frustrated with the war in Iran, which they see as the opposite of what this administration promised. Even the most Trump-leaning participants believe he has the wrong priorities, and the war is the one of the central reasons why.

These voters experience the war primarily as an economic issue, burdened by the higher costs at home and the taxpayer dollars spent abroad. Democrats and allied groups are honing this, tying that frustration with Republicans’ priorities directly back to costs. They’re drawing a direct line between the war and the higher costs working class voters are facing — and the issues at home that aren’t being addressed because of the war’s price tag.

In Iowa, Senate candidate Josh Turek is drawing on his own life story to message about the Iran war and make the case of Republicans’ wrong priorities. In a campaign ad, Turek frames the issue around affordability, telling working-class voters directly: “It’s working class families like mine paying the price for Trump’s war and Washington’s corruption.”

Born with spina bifida because of his father’s exposure to Agent Orange while fighting in Vietnam, Turek has used numerous public appearances to emphasize his own background as proof that these foreign conflicts have consequences that last generations. He ties it directly to kitchen table issues, hammering the point that Washington is writing blank checks for wars abroad while health care, schools, infrastructure, and the cost of living at home go unaddressed.

VoteVets, a Democratic-aligned group who supports military veterans running for office, is putting this message to work in Wisconsin. The group launched a spot in Wisconsin targeting vulnerable Republican incumbent Rep. Van Orden, hitting him for backing the war in Iran while supporting cuts to VA care. The contrast sharply communicates the wrong priorities frame, emphasizing that Van Orden is willing to spend money on wars abroad without taking care of the veterans that return home. The ad also drives home the everyday cost of the conflict, pointing to surging gas prices to show working class Americans are footing the bill.

Key messages:

• “We’re paying the cost every damn day of this war in Iran. But for Congressman Van Orden, we’re not paying enough.”

• “He’s going for another $200 billion to spend on Iran. This is the same guy who backed big cuts to VA care for vets.”

• “Look, vets like me, we understand the cost of war. But if we don’t have the money to take care of our veterans, we damn sure can’t afford another war.”

In Maine, Majority Forward’s ad against Senator Susan Collins opens by telling Mainers they’re already getting squeezed by Collins’ vote to raise health care costs, then pivots to her vote against restraining Trump in Iran, connecting it explicitly to higher costs Mainers are facing.

Key messages:

• “You’re already getting squeezed because Susan Collins voted with Donald Trump to raise health care costs and raise insurance premiums. Now, Susan Collins voted to give Trump a blank check for his war in Iran.”

• “Mainers can’t afford it.”

American Bridge is backing this messaging with real money. We launched a campaign spanning nearly 20 races built specifically around tying Republican votes to the price increases families are feeling. In Iowa, our ads directly connect Republican candidates’ support for the Iran war to the higher fuel prices taking more money out of Iowans’ wallets.

Key messages:

• “I see the gas and diesel prices, almost $5 a gallon.”

• “This Iran war and the tariffs are just adding to the bottomline and we’re paying the difference.”

• “Ashley Hinson backs an agenda that just makes things more expensive.”

NOT JUST OPPOSITION, BUT A FORWARD VISION

One of the major critiques our focus groups have revealed about Democrats is that working class voters don’t think Democrats stand for much beyond opposing Trump. That’s not enough. These voters don’t just want a list of grievances, they want to know what Democrats will do to actually make their lives better. Effective working class messaging has to not only diagnose what’s not working, it has to also offer a positive forward vision for a system that actually works for them.

Roy Cooper is embracing that balance. The former North Carolina Governor is one of Democrats’ best chances to flip a Senate seat this year. His campaign launch hits corruption, health care cuts, veterans being ripped off, and threats to Medicare and Social Security — all to fund tax breaks for billionaires. The central message is a broken political system that keeps making life harder for working people. But Cooper doesn’t leave it there. He closes with an explicit argument that the country’s best days are still ahead. That’s what makes the message resonate. It doesn’t deny the struggles working class voters face — his whole message is centered around them — but it doesn’t deny them a vision of what good governance and a system that serves them could look like.

Key messages:

• “It wasn’t always this hard, because being in the middle class meant something.”

• “For too many Americans, the middle class feels like a distant dream. Meanwhile the biggest corporations and richest Americans have grabbed unimaginable wealth, at your expense. It’s time for that to change.”

• “Even now, I still believe our best days are ahead of us.”

In Alaska, where Democrats are mounting a bid to flip the Senate seat, former Rep. Mary Peltola is doing this throughout her ads. She pairs a similar critique of what’s wrong with Washington — politicians more focused on their stock portfolios than the wallets of Alaskans — with a vision rooted in abundance and self-sufficiency, declaring there’s no group of people more ready to save themselves than Alaskans. Peltola’s campaign is built around Alaska’s working class identity — with her slogan “Fish, Family, and Freedom” — and the cost of living dominating working class voters’ concerns.

Key messages:

• “It’s not just that politicians in DC don’t care that we’re paying $17 a gallon for milk in rural Alaska, they don’t even believe us. They’re more focused on their stock portfolios than our bank accounts.”

• “Our future also depends on fixing the rigged system in DC that’s shutting down Alaska while politicians feather their own nest.”

• “There’s no group of people more ready to save ourselves than Alaskans.”

In Mississippi, Scott Colom is challenging incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in a bid to deliver the state its first Democratic senator in years. His campaign launch, Mississippi Matters, deploys working-class messaging to draw a sharp contrast with Hyde-Smith’s record — particularly her vote to cut health care and put rural Mississippi hospitals at risk of closure in order to fund tax breaks for billionaires. Colom pairs that contrast with a forward-looking vision: a Mississippi where working families can afford to get by and the state’s best days lie ahead, backed by a concrete economic platform aimed at lowering costs for working people.

Key working-class messages from Colom:

• “When people outside of Mississippi think about our state, they think about our past. I think it’s finally time to look to our future.”

• “I want to boost wages for Mississippi workers, because let’s face it everything still costs way too much.”

• “I will work with anyone, from any party, to save Mississippi hospitals, which Cindy Hyde-Smith put on the chopping block.”

THE FORMULA: ACCOUNTABILITY MEETS ASPIRATION

Pressing the negatives that we’ve found moves voters is necessary, but alone it’s not sufficient. Voters need to know not just what Democrats are against, but what they’re fighting for. Democrats will be best poised to make strides with working class voters if they pair sharp economic attacks with a clear, affirmative vision for the future and a fairer economy.

Combining accountability and fairness with forward-looking aspiration is a recipe that resonates. It’s up to Democrats to deploy it right.

NEXT WEEK: We look at how working class voters’ views on government programs have changed since the passing of the Big Beautiful Bill, and what Democrats need to do to resonate with their evolving sentiments.

Our focus groups have followed working class voters in battleground states since 2025 — many of whom backed Trump in 2024 but are now not aligned closely with either political party. They’re exactly the voters Democrats need to win back, and our research points to a real opening: the benefit of the doubt these voters extended to Trump and Republicans is wearing thin as costs keep climbing. Even Trump-inclined participants are telling us they’re open to voting for Democrats if they offer something better.

Up and down the ballot, candidates and allied groups are already building campaigns with messages our research shows resonate.

Here’s a look into how Democratic campaigns are using working class messaging in their efforts to win back these voters.

HEALTH CARE AS THE CORNERSTONE

Across all of our focus groups in 2026, health care stands out as a key issue driving financial anxieties and frustration. These voters know the system is broken and it’s only getting worse. The Big Beautiful Bill becomes a huge vulnerability for Republicans when working class voters are shown the details — like how it guts Medicaid and puts rural hospitals at risk, especially since the trade off was to give billionaires a tax break. This healthcare attack was critical last year in Virginia.

Democrats are starting to weaponize this, making health care messaging cornerstones of their campaigns. The Cook Political Report’s Battleground Issue Tracker shows health care and cost-of-living messaging dominating Democratic ad spending across the map.

The DSCC released a new ad calling out Ashley Hinson for spending her time in Congress getting rich at Iowans’ expense — with health care as the centerpiece of this message. The ad features Hinson’s record: she voted to cut taxes for the 1%, eliminate ACA tax credits, slash Medicaid, put Iowa hospitals at risk of closure, block veterans’ health care funding, and kill prescription drug price caps — all while she got richer. The ad’s argument is validated by our focus groups as a powerful working class message, that health care costs are high because she looks out for herself, not her constituents.

Key working class messaging:

• “Her net worth? It’s increased up to $7 million since she first ran for Congress.”

• “While she’s getting richer, Hinson voted to put health care for hundreds of thousands of Iowans at risk.”

But it’s not just Medicaid cuts and the Big Beautiful Bill that Democrats are using to talk about health care — it’s bleeding into corruption messaging. As we shared last week, these voters are deeply cynical about politics and believe that politicians on both sides of the aisle are corrupt.

Former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper represents one of the Democratic Party’s best chances to flip a Senate seat this cycle. His campaign ads center on making life easier for the working class, specifically calling out insurance companies that are keeping health care costs high. This messaging directly addresses the role special interests play in keeping costs high for the working class — messaging our focus groups show resonates with these voters.

Key working class message from Cooper:

• “I’m running for the Senate to make life easier today. To go after insurance companies ripping you off, to make sure you can retire with dignity, and to build an economy that finally values working people.”

In Georgia, Jon Ossoff is defending a vulnerable Senate seat, and the one most essential to winning a Senate majority. Ossoff’s campaign has made this connection between special interests and higher costs central to his campaign. Nowhere is this more clear than the over four-minute ad, This is Why Things Don’t Work for Ordinary People. Ossoff traces how pharmaceutical lobbying has kept prescription drug prices high, and Ossoff’s own record of taking on the industry.

Key working class messages from Ossoff:

• “We’re told a story. Work hard, play by the rules, and you’ll thrive. No matter who you are, or where you start, the grind will pay off. But for too many, this story just isn’t true.”

• “You aren’t the problem, neither are your fellow Americans. The problem is a corrupt and failing political system.”

• “If we can break the grip of corruption, our politics can meet the people’s needs, instead of serving the wealthy and powerful.”

James Talarico, who is vying to flip Texas’ Senate seat blue for the first time in decades, is running a similar message, built around prescription drug prices and his record of fighting to cap insulin at $25 a month for Texans. The ad, which boasts 10 million views on YouTube, recounts his own struggle affording insulin as a Type 1 diabetic, demonstrating that he understands the lived reality of working class voters.

Working class messaging from Talarico:

• “When I picked up my first insulin prescription it cost me $684 dollars. I couldn’t afford that. Most Texans can’t either.”

• “I know what it means to fight for my life. I approve this message because, in the Senate, I’ll fight for yours.”

CORRUPTION STOCK TRADES, AND SELF DEALING

One message that runs through nearly every campaign using working class messaging: the economy doesn’t work for you, because politicians in Washington are working for themselves and their donors, not you.

The framing aligns with what we hear in focus groups. Corruption is a strong negative for working class voters and taps into a sentiment we heard earlier in our focus groups: that our system is broken and we need change. These voters gave Trump early benefit of the doubt, even through the chaos, because they believe Washington is fundamentally broken and needs an overhaul. They still believe the system doesn’t work for them and needs to be changed. Democrats aren’t shying away from that.

In Ohio, one of the key Senate battlegrounds, Democratic candidate and former US Senator Sherrod Brown is making a congressional stock trading ban a centerpiece of his campaign. This month, Brown launched Last Year, a spot built around the $635 million members of Congress made in stock trades last year and calls for a ban on members of Congress and their spouses trading stocks.

Brown’s working class messaging:

• “Members of Congress and their spouses should be banned from trading stocks. And if you serve in Congress you should never be able to cash in and become a lobbyist.”

• “If you can’t agree to that, then you shouldn’t be in office.”

Pennsylvania, home to some of the cycle’s most competitive House races, shows the same sentiment. In the state’s 8th District, Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti launched her campaign with a video hammering Rep. Rob Bresnahan for making more than 600 stock trades after campaigning on a congressional trading ban — including, as Cognetti highlights, selling stock in Medicaid providers just before voting to gut Medicaid, “profiting off of Pennsylvanians loss” as she puts it. Cognetti explicitly connects congressional stock trading and self dealing from her Republican opponent with the economic pain Pennsylvania voters are feeling. She pairs the hit with her own record of fighting corruption as Scranton mayor.

Cognetti’s working class messaging:

• “[Rob Bresnahan] Cut Medicaid for over 25,000 of our neighbors. Sold Medicaid provider stocks just before the vote, profiting off of Pennsylvanian’s loss.”

• “We can stand tall against a Washington that takes advantage of working people, and make it work for us.”

In Iowa, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand is making anti-corruption and government efficiency the core of his campaign. A former state prosecutor and State Auditor, Sand is leaning on his career catching public officials for misusing funds and lasering in on the message of protecting tax payer money from corrupt politicians. In his campaign ads, he promises to make jail time mandatory for public officials that steal tax dollars. The message aligns with what we’re hearing from working class voters: they’re fed up with a political class that cheats the system and lines its own pockets at their expense.

Key message:

• “Stealing is bad, and stealing from tax payers should be unacceptable.”

WORKING CLASS AS AN IDENTITY, NOT JUST A TAX BRACKET

For many of these voters, “working class” isn’t just an income level, it’s an identity built on hard work. Our conversations with working class voters show us that they want to work, they don’t want to depend on the government, and they’re frustrated that no matter how hard they try they just can’t seem to get ahead. They’re working paycheck to paycheck, and they know what it means to struggle to get by.

Campaigns honing working class messaging are tapping into this identity.

Iowa Senate candidate Josh Turek’s campaign launch video,“Underdog”, is built around this ethos. It opens with him pushing his wheelchair up a hill while describing growing up working class and never doubting that, despite his spina bifida and working class background, hard work would get him the American dream — tapping directly into the working class values of self sufficiency and hard work we’ve heard in our focus groups. He credits VA health coverage and a free summer lunch program with helping get him there, then pivots to Republican Sen. Joni Ernst’s vote to cut Medicaid and food assistance to fund tax breaks for billionaires.

His message frames the programs Republicans slashed, not through dependency or as a contradiction to hard work and grit, but as a way of allowing families the safety net to let their hard work pay off.

Key messages:

• “I knew nothing would come easy, but I never doubted my right to the American dream.”

• “It wouldn’t have been possible without the grit that made me shoot a thousand shots every day. And I wouldn’t have gotten that far without VA health coverage from my dad’s service, free summer lunch programs when my parents were struggling, and the local AEA that made sure I had access to a good education.”

• “Now the Senator from Iowa is just closing doors. Taking away health care, making it harder for parents to feed their kids. All just to give tax breaks to billionaires.”

In Pennsylvania’s 7th District, firefighter and union president Bob Brooks is tying anti-corruption messaging to his own working class identity. In his campaign launch, Brooks frames his opponent, Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, as someone who hands tax cuts to the wealthy while working people get left behind. His message clearly lays out the corruption in Washington while pushing to make things more affordable, give more people health care, and build more stuff in Pennsylvania — tying in affordability and anti-corruption messaging with the value of work we’ve seen from working class voters.

Key messages:

• “There’s a lot of politicians in Washington like Mackenzie, not a lot of folks like us.”

• “We gotta make things more affordable, get more people health care, and build stuff here. With a clear goal: to make life easier, so we can spend more time with our family.”

Running in Ohio’s 7th District, Brian Poindexter has built his campaign around his own working class identity as a union ironworker. His campaign launch ad centered messaging on what we’ve heard from working class voters: working people are putting in more effort than ever, yet Washington’s rigged rules keep them from getting ahead. Poindexter consistently honors the work ethic of his constituents while holding Washington accountable for failing them.

Key working class messages from Poindexter:

• “We’re working harder and harder and we’re getting less and less.”

• “Growing up in the ‘80s on the west side of Cleveland, we didn’t have much, but an honest day’s work was enough to provide for your family. My dad was a machinist with the IAM for 46 years. That one job was enough to support a family of 8. That is obviously not possible anymore.”

• “I’m tired of the Republicans who are in the pockets of the rich and the corporations. I’m tired of the sellout Democrats, too. The ones who fight for everybody else except for the working people.”

In North Carolina’s 11th District, congressional candidate Jamie Ager uses working class messaging to make the connection between working class identity and government accountability. A fifth-generation farmer, Ager’s campaign launch draws a direct line between the hard work and accountability farm life demands to the kind of leadership needed in Congress.

Key messages:

• “Farming teaches you to be accountable. To the land, the animals, and to people.”

• “Helping the rich get richer on the backs of hard-working Americans isn’t working.”

• “It doesn’t have to be this way. The challenges we face are big, but how we arrive at the answers is probably pretty simple. Be honest, be curious, work together. That’s how you run a farm, imagine if it’s how we ran our country.”

A BLUEPRINT

These are just a few of the campaigns showing how to deploy working class messages effectively. They aren’t talking about issues that leave working class voters feeling cast aside and they aren’t just attacking Republicans — they’re messaging relentlessly about costs, tying every attack on Republicans back to the economic squeeze voters are feeling, they’re speaking to the values and identity of working class voters, and pairing critiques with a positive vision forward.

NEXT WEEK: We’ll explore how campaigns are working class messaging to turn Republican priorities against them and offering working class voters a more positive vision for the future.

As you know, we returned to working class voters earlier this year across battleground states who have been part of our research effort since 2025. Many voted for Trump in 2024, but they’re soft partisans — exactly the voters Democrats need to win back. We talked with them about the 2026 midterms and tested a range of messages to gauge what, if anything, has shifted.

Focus group participants were given a list of negatives — that were drawn largely from opposition research found by American Bridge’s top-tier research team — and were asked to consider which among the list bothered them most or were most offensive to them, then subsequently asked to discuss why. Here’s what we found:

HEALTH CARE IS TOP OF MIND

Across every group tested, health care messaging was amongst the most impactful in moving voters. These voters know health care costs are rising, they see and feel it in their own families and communities. Many are witnessing, or at least have heard of, rural hospitals being put at risk of closure (even if they do not know those closures because of the Big Beautiful Bill’s Medicaid cuts). There’s a clear opportunity for Democrats to tie those costs to Republican policy choices.

“The cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are terrifying, because children and people with special needs depend on that to survive. Seniors are getting older and with less money and disposable income, and so they need affordable housing. They need access to medical care. Our rural communities are losing hospitals.” – White woman in Iowa

The negatives that landed hardest tied Republican votes directly to gutted health care services, and pairing those cuts with tax fairness messaging proved potent. In Georgia, one of the top testing negatives was a “A Republican who passed a bill that will make the largest cuts to Medicaid and food assistance in history to fund massive tax breaks for the top 1%, including their billionaires donors.” That messaging moved voters. The sense of injustice in that juxtaposition resonated immediately and made it among the most salient topics.

“Why are we giving the tax breaks to the rich, the elite, the ones that don’t have a care in the world?... Why give them tax breaks and take away from the poor folks, the working class, the ones that are barely surviving?” – White voter in Georgia

What’s notable is that this messaging works even when voters haven’t connected the dots to their own lives. Most are aware of the Big Beautiful Bill, but haven’t yet internalized that it gutted Medicaid. But once they’re shown the specifics, they quickly connect it to the real experiences of people in their lives in a way that genuinely moves them.

CORRUPTION LANDS

These voters already believe politicians on both sides of the aisle are corrupt, taking money from special interests and voting to enrich themselves. That preconceived skepticism makes corruption messaging credible for them.

But while these voters see corruption as bipartisan, Democrats have a real opportunity to drive wedges on specific Republican vulnerabilities: stock trading and being in the pockets of Big Pharma and insurance companies.

“Any time a politician takes money from big companies or big organizations, it’s the general public that suffers.” — White man from North Carolina

“Someone that goes into Congress and makes $174,000 a year comes out with a net worth of $30 million — the math doesn’t math for me there. It’s just inherently dishonest.” — White man from Iowa

One of the strongest-testing messages in North Carolina and Iowa involved a Republican’s refusal to pass a stock trading ban. This messaging landed hardest among men, who were otherwise more skeptical of negatives on Republicans.

In Georgia, where the working class voters we talked to are less engaged in stock trading, negatives on stock trading bans and corruption were lower tier, but still moved some voters.

What proved more potent there were negatives that connected self-enrichment to voters’ own cost concerns. A negative that moved voters featured a hypothetical “Republican who supported massive cuts to healthcare and then used insider connections and political donations so their own healthcare business could secure a $694 million no-bid contract funded by Georgia taxpayers struggling to pay monthly premiums and afford life-saving medications.”

Because health care is top of mind for so many voters, messaging that weaves health care and corruption together was especially powerful.

Among the top negative testing messages was “A Republican who took hundreds of thousands of dollars from big pharma and insurance, then voted against capping the cost of insulin and allowing insurance companies to jack up the price of insurance.” Bridging that connection between Republicans enriching themselves and the financial anxieties characterizing working class voters’ daily lives, makes corruption negatives all the more impactful.

TRUMP IS OUT OF TOUCH AND HAS THE WRONG PRIORITIES

Across all groups, there was broad consensus that Trump is focused on the wrong things. Even the most Republican-leaning participants agreed that Trump has the wrong priorities, with the war in Iran being the primary driver of that belief.

But Trump’s economic rhetoric is also doing its own damage, with frustration growing that Trump is out of touch. When shown his comments calling the economy “strong” and declaring a “golden age,” voters reacted with something akin to betrayal. Hearing him describe an economy that bears no resemblance to their lived experiences left them feeling written off. These voters described a sense that he doesn’t care about regular people — just his wealthy friends.

“I feel like the Golden Age probably refers to his friends or people he knows, like Elon Musk and the billionaires and stuff. It probably is like that. But for the average person, it’s not.” – Black man from Georgia

“That’s crock. I’m not calling him a boldfaced liar, but that was a lie. If anybody thinks that inflation is [over], they haven’t gone to the grocery store lately or stepped outside and got gas.” – White man from North Carolina

“The price of beef is absolutely ridiculous. The price of eggs is way up. Food costs are astronomical, and nobody seems to be doing anything about it… Yeah, I think he’s a little out of touch with what’s actually going on with people.” – White man from Iowa

Many of these voters have been inclined in the past to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. Even when his policies were causing chaos, they still held out that they might end up being net-good in the long run — such as with tariffs. But that goodwill is beginning to erode. The disconnect between Trump’s rhetoric and working class voters’ reality is a real vulnerability. Their daily struggles are being denied by someone who they increasingly believe just doesn’t get it.

SPEAKING OF WRONG PRIORITIES: THE IRAN WAR

The Iran war has become one of Trump’s sharpest vulnerabilities with these voters. More than any other issue, it is driving the narrative that Trump has the wrong priorities — and many of these voters don’t see an end in sight.

Trump campaigned on ending foreign entanglements and lowering costs. That’s not what these voters are getting with the conflict in Iran.

“The people can’t make it more than paycheck to paycheck, and he’s worried about the bullies across the ocean.” – White man from North Carolina

“I feel like the goalpost has moved several times. At first, it was just stopping the nuclear weapon, and then it became like, a regime change. And I guess my, I say, my biggest concern is that we end up putting a lot of time, energy, money, soldiers, lives in danger for this, and then we end up either being there a long time or leaving and nothing has really changed, except that maybe Iran is actually a little bit stronger, because they now know that they can control the Strait of Hormuz, which they didn’t know they could do before.” – White man from Iowa

These voters feel the war as an economic issue, they are most upset with rising costs from the war and that tax payer dollars are being used overseas on it. Overall, they are generally fatigued and jaded with foreign involvement and Iran is no different — in fact, it’s a betrayal from a President who campaigned on the exact opposite.

OTHER NEGATIVES WORTH NOTING

Beyond the top-tier cost messaging outlined above, other negatives proved impactful for these voters.

Messaging around Social Security, particularly Republicans cutting Social Security and closing SSA offices while Americans wait months for benefits, resonated strongly.

Among these voters, “spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new White House ballroom while Americans can’t afford gas and groceries” landed hard as a symbol of how far removed these politicians are from the people they represent. It isn’t that the White House ballroom itself is the negative, it’s the contrast that it represents between families being stretched thin, while Washington spends money on the wrong priorities. The Epstein files were concerning for voters too, particularly women who were disturbed by messaging around Republicans who voted against releasing them. These issues move some voters, but carry less urgency than the cost pressures hitting people directly.

For women, abortion was a strong negative. Among the top-performing non-cost messages was “A Republican who supports a complete abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother, and could ban common forms of birth control.” Women responded to this emphatically. For many, it’s less about their personal views on abortion itself and more about autonomy — the fundamental right to make their own decisions about their bodies. As one woman put it: “I don’t say that I would do it myself, but I just want the opportunity to say — for people that incest and rape and other things, you know, and just even women who have to have a D&C and have to go and do it at home because their doctors are too afraid. That’s wrong.”

“[Democrats] don’t want to tell me what to do with my uterus. I don’t care. That’s the thing. Whatever you want to do is your business and your decision. That’s your life.” – White woman in Iowa.

Democrats have largely stepped back from abortion in paid communications in recent years. But it remains a salient issue for working class women who feel their autonomy is under direct threat and see that as a major diverging issue between themselves and the Republican Party.

For men, some of the most resonant negatives were of politicians who are visibly detached from working class struggles — whether that’s blocking infrastructure investment, dodging town halls, or approving a White House ballroom project. Infrastructure in particular landed hard for this group.

WHAT DEMOCRATS ARE DOING ABOUT IT

What we found points to real opportunities for Democrats. These voters are no longer extending Republicans the same benefit of the doubt — they’re watching things get worse, and their frustration is mounting. Democrats up and down the ballot are already honing these vulnerabilities in their campaigns, deploying messaging that speaks directly to the concerns working-class voters are voicing.

Health Care and Medicaid Cuts

Health care has become the centerpiece of the Democratic effort to retake Congress this cycle. Across the country, candidates are hammering Republicans for gutting working families’ health care to pay for tax breaks for billionaires — pressing exactly the negative juxtaposition our focus groups showed moves voters. Jon Ossoff, Georgia’s Democratic incumbent running for Senate, launched an over four-minute ad exposing Big Pharma’s grip on Washington and his record of fighting back against it — explicitly tying corruption to the higher costs working-class voters are already feeling, a connection our focus groups showed was particularly effective.

The Iran War and Wrong Priorities

Democrats are connecting the Iran war directly to the economic pressures facing working-class Americans, hitting the wrong-priorities sentiment that working class voters are expressing in these focus groups. In Maine, Majority Forward launched an ad hitting Republican Senator Susan Collins for voting to raise health care costs and insurance premiums while backing a war in Iran that is driving up gas prices. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley hosted a “Healthcare Not Warfare Day of Action,” explicitly contrasting the cost of the war with what that money could mean for the affordability challenges facing American families.

Corruption and Congressional Stock Trading

Democratic candidates and allied groups are also making corruption and Congressional stock trading central issues this cycle. Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, running for Senate, launched an ad this month highlighting his push to ban stock trades by members of Congress and their spouses.

The Path Forward

In Iowa, American Bridge launched a series of ads last week linking Republican candidates’ votes to slash Medicaid, support tariffs, and back the Iran war with the real-world impact on families across the state. These ads are part of a $50 million campaign spanning nearly 20 key races — driven by research from the Working Class Project and grounded in the daily cost concerns we’re hearing from working-class voters nationwide.

The research indicates that if Democrats can get the message right, they can win back working class voters they’ve lost ground with. The path forward is to press these negatives relentlessly — connecting Republican votes and priorities to the lived experiences voters are already feeling at every chance, and making sure that message breaks through.

Late last month, we told you how Iowa working class voters were squeezed financially and starting to turn. Working class voters are fed up with the cost, chaos, and corruption.

Iowa is a critical battleground this year, with important races for the U.S. Senate, several competitive U.S. House races, and a top-tier gubernatorial pickup opportunity. Iowa is a high probability tipping point state for control of the House and Senate, which means white working class voters here could make all the difference.

This week, American Bridge is launching its campaign to win in Iowa, with new ads in the US Senate and 1st and 2nd congressional districts.

TO EXPAND THE MAP AND WIN THE HOUSE & SENATE, IOWA IS CRITICAL

These Iowa races are the first investment in a multi-million dollar campaign targeting working class voters in nearly 20 key races where we’re aiming to expand the battleground by putting traditionally safe Republican seats—including districts rated R+3 or higher—in play this November.

This investment represents American Bridge’s first and largest midterm paid media effort to date and builds on extensive voter research from this Working Class Project, which has spent more than a year studying the concerns, priorities, and media consumption habits of working-class voters nationwide.

The campaign will feature local storytellers sharing firsthand accounts of rising costs due to Trump’s tariffs and Iran War, health care challenges including rising costs and Medicaid cuts, and other economic pressures.

IT’S ALL ABOUT COSTS

We’re incorporating the lessons we’ve learned from the Working Class Project to build a paid program that messages on the issues working class voters care about. Here’s the big takeaway:

Costs. Costs. Costs.

Our research and focus groups, in Iowa and across the country, show that costs remain the dominant concern for working class voters. Whether it’s grocery bills, the price at the pump, rent, fertilizer, or health insurance premiums, these voters are experiencing soaring costs and they’re not seeing relief. Iowa’s farmers are being squeezed from all sides as tariffs and the war in Iran continue to drive up operational costs and shrink export markets. So every message, every ad, and every dollar we are investing in Iowa connects back to rising costs. Tariffs are driving up costs and making exporting goods harder, the war in Iran is pushing fertilizer and gas prices even higher, Medicaid cuts are making health care unaffordable. Everything ties into cost of living.

Our research from the Heartland also reveals that working class voters see Democrats as “preachy” and are tired of them lecturing about issues they don’t care about. Voters want to hear the issues they care about represented and prioritized, and for working class voters that’s kitchen table issues. So that’s the message we’re driving home in all of our ads.

REAL IOWANS, REAL LOCAL IMPACTS

We’re entering the Hawkeye state early and drawing on the lessons we’ve learned from the Working Class Project to shape the narrative of the state’s races by uplifting real voices, meeting them where they are, and speaking to the issues that matter most to them.

Health care costs remain a major pain point for these voters. Medicaid cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill have threatened the health coverage of 86,000 Iowans and put rural hospitals across the state at risk. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) and Ashley Hinson (IA-SEN) both voted for the Big Beautiful Bill, while Joe Mitchell (IA-02) publicly championed the legislation. Our research shows that when these voters are shown what’s in the Big Beautiful Bill — like massive cuts to Medicaid to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy — they shift, and their attitudes towards Republicans who voted for it get significantly more negative.

Working class voters are also feeling the squeeze of tariffs, with rising grocery prices being the most cited cost of living concern in our focus groups. The pain is felt acutely in Iowa, where farmers are facing higher input costs and shrinking export markets. Miller-Meeks and Hinson both voted to protect the tariffs and Joe Mitchell has expressed his strong support for them.

Meet Jay

Jay is a public transit driver from Bettendorf, IA. He sees the pain at the pump with higher gas and diesel costs due to the war in Iran. His family relies on Medicaid for his grandson’s health care. Higher gas, food, and rising health costs have made it harder for Jay’s family to get by.

Meet Matt

Matt is a farmer from Lacona, IA. Tariffs and the war in Iran have raised Matt’s costs and made it more difficult than ever to be a farmer. And rural Iowans are feeling the brunt of Medicaid cuts, which threaten rural hospitals and will raise health insurance costs for everyone else.

Meet Brad

Brad is a personal trainer from Walford, IA, just outside of Cedar Rapids. He is a lifelong Republican and voted for Donald Trump. But he is fed up with the rising costs, the chaos and the betrayal of hardworking Iowans.

Their stories reflect what we are hearing from working class voters across Iowa.

Our research shows us that these voters can be persuaded, but only if we get it right. We have to reach them, and we have to reach them with the right message in the right places. That’s why American Bridge launched the Working Class Project in 2025, and it’s why we’re using that research to guide our paid media efforts in 2026.

Read more about American Bridge 21st Century’s Midterm Ad Campaign:

The New York Times: A Democratic Super PAC Makes a $50 Million Bet in Republican Strongholds

Associated Press: Democratic group launches ad campaign to help flip control of Congress in midterm elections

Over the last few weeks, we’ve recapped our discussions with the same group of Trump voters we talked to last year, as well as focus groups in the battlegrounds of North Carolina and Iowa.

Today, we’re talking about the great state of Georgia, where we went in early May.

Georgia is critical for the Senate. Incumbent Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff is defending a seat in one of the most closely watched battlegrounds of the cycle. There’s also a key race for Governor and other statewide races that will be important for the 2028 map and beyond.

We held two focus groups: working-class white Georgians, ages 21 to 39, and working-class Black Georgians, ages 25 to 64. The white group leaned independent. The Black group was a mix of Democrats and independents — and critically, people who are not definite to vote in 2026. Understanding why they might stay home is as important as understanding what would bring them out.

Here’s what we found.

NOT JUST UNHAPPY, “SCARED”

In Iowa, working-class voters described the country as “a hot mess.” In Georgia, the language was even more fearful. Scared. Worried. Numb. Disappointed. Embarrassed.

Where Iowa voters felt squeezed, many Georgia voters described something closer to free fall. The lone “hopeful” participant in the room clarified, when asked, that she was being aspirational — not describing anything she was actually experiencing right now.

The distinction matters. Squeezed voters are looking for relief. Voters in free fall are looking for someone who even understands that they’re falling.

“Save from what?”

In past focus groups across many states, working-class voters have lamented that they can’t afford vacations, can’t save for retirement, can’t get ahead. That’s still true — but in Georgia, we heard something more severe. These voters weren’t talking about vacations. They were talking about the basics of survival.

One participant described what a $20 buffer in her budget would mean: it would be tough to find. Another described spending $500 a month on groceries as a single person — without luxury items — and being unable to explain why. A newly single mother described spending roughly half her take-home pay on gas, unable to afford daycare for her one-year-old, unable to qualify for an apartment because she doesn’t earn three times the monthly rent. She put it plainly: “When you don’t make that, what are you supposed to do?”

A white voter who had to downsize from a three-bedroom house to a two-bedroom apartment just to keep pace with bills wasn’t describing a setback. He was describing an ongoing renegotiation of what his life is going to look like — and not by choice.

Democrats looking for economic messages that connect in Georgia don’t need to manufacture urgency. The urgency is already there. They need to meet people where that urgency lives.

Trump gets Ds and Fs — but the reasoning differs by group

Trump’s grades in Georgia were dramatically worse than what we saw in Iowa. Not a single white voter gave him above a D. Among Black voters, two gave him a B and a C respectively — but their explanations were telling: they didn’t see him as performing well, they saw him as simply revealing the truth about America. As one put it, “he’s the face of the ugly truth.” Another said he’s “really letting us know how it is.” For these voters, Trump isn’t an anomaly. He’s a symptom.

White voters gave Trump Fs for broken promises — on inflation, on war, on the fundamental direction of the country. One described him as having “succeeded in making very few things better, and instead, making everything worse.” Another compared his use of executive orders to every other president she’s had complaints about — before adding that she was more worried about the cabinet around him than about Trump himself.

That last observation is worth flagging. Voters who focus anger on the system around Trump, rather than Trump alone, are not going to be satisfied by messages that are purely Trump-centric. They need to see accountability attached to specific people making specific choices.

When we shared Trump’s own words describing the economy as “strong” and in a “golden age,” the reaction was immediate and visceral. “He’s delusional,” said one. “It makes me mad,” said another.

A Black voter offered a careful translation of what she thought Trump meant: the golden age is real — for Elon Musk and the billionaires. For the average person, it’s not.

“I feel like the Golden Age probably refers to his friends or people he knows, like Elon Musk and the billionaires and stuff. It probably is like that. But for the average person, it’s not.” — Black voter

“I’m sure he doesn’t feel the effect on it. Because he’s Donald Trump, you know, he’s had plenty of money his whole life. He doesn’t know how we actually live... It’s not just him personally, it’s anybody in the government. I don’t feel like they truly care.” — White voter

This is the same dynamic we saw in Iowa: Trump’s economic denialism isn’t just wrong, it’s insulting. It converts broader economic frustration into a specific, personal grievance.

HEALTH CARE IS A LIFE OR DEATH EMERGENCY.

Iowa voters described insurance costs and coverage gaps as painful and infuriating. In Georgia, we heard something different in scale. These are not voters frustrated by high premiums. These are voters whose family members are being actively harmed by what’s happening to Medicaid right now.

One white voter described driving an hour to the nearest hospital because her local one had closed. She has two children. One ambulance in her area, she said, because there’s no funding. Her mother is in the CCU with lung cancer complications — and was told her Medicaid had been cut. Her sister, mid-cancer-treatment, was cut off as well. Her sister’s port hasn’t been flushed in nine months.

This is not a focus group quote about a policy preference. It’s a description of a family experiencing a health care crisis in real time, right now, because of decisions made in Washington by Trump and the Republican congress.

Black voters responded to the health care messages with moral outrage that matched the white voter’s personal experience. Cutting hospitals. Cutting ambulances. Eliminating essential services for the least fortunate. Several called it evil. One asked the question that stopped the room:

“If people can’t afford to send their kids to school and feed them and get health care, everybody’s going to die — and then what are you fighting for?”

In the message testing, health care was the dominant choice in both groups. The strongest message combined corruption and health care in one frame.

TAX FAIRNESS AND OTHER MESSAGES EFFECTIVE

As we’ve seen consistently in April and May, our “tax cuts for the wealthy while cutting benefits for the rest” frame landed across both groups, though it worked differently. White voters responded to it as a moral outrage — cutting Medicaid and food assistance to fund breaks for corporations that “aren’t worried about food, aren’t worried about health.” Black voters responded similarly, framing it as a question of whose lives the government has decided to value.

The stock trading ban message — so powerful in Iowa, particularly with men — landed more softly in Georgia. The reason was revealing: several participants simply said they don’t follow stocks and don’t invest, so it didn’t feel relevant to them. When you’re figuring out whether you can find a spare $20, the machinations of a congressional stock portfolio feel very far away. The principle of congressional self-dealing matters to these voters. The mechanism of insider trading doesn’t resonate if you’ve never had money to invest.

The lesson for us here lies in crafting a corruption message that can be translated into the concrete terms of these voters’ actual lives.

Social Security rises to the top — and it’s not just about retirement

The strongest non-cost message overall was about a Republican who supported raising the Social Security retirement age and slashing social security administration funding. Seven of fifteen participants chose it. This surprised some in the room, given the relatively young age of the white group. But it shouldn’t surprise us. Working-class people think about Social Security not just as their own future retirement — they think about their parents, their grandparents, anyone they’re already helping support.

“Like, it is just like, Gosh, what a lot of societies really, really prioritize the elderly, and we, I just, it’s just sickening to get to that point in your life and think you have something and it’s completely stripped from you when you’re not able bodied.” - white woman

When SSA offices close and wait times spike, the people answering those phones for elderly relatives are often the same working-class adults sitting in our focus groups.

A message about spending on the White House ballroom also reached seven total because it underscores that while you can’t afford gas and groceries, the president is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to renovate his own party space.

Abortion was chosen by five participants, led by white voters. It continues to be a durable vulnerability, particularly when framed as part of a broader pattern of Republicans taking away personal freedoms and choices.

Redistricting: the mobilization message Democrats are underleveraging

Here’s a finding that deserves serious strategic attention ahead of 2026.

Black voters in Georgia raised redistricting and voter suppression organically, without significant prompting, and connected it directly to their willingness to participate in elections. Several specifically named the 2018 Governor’s race as a moment of betrayal — when their votes were not fairly counted, when the rules were designed to sideline them. One described losing faith in the ethics of the electoral system entirely when redistricting started happening around him. Another said it directly: “Those whose votes should matter... their votes don’t count because they’re being thrown away.”

The message we tested about a Republican who used power as Secretary of State to purge nearly half a million names from Georgia’s voter rolls, nearly half of them Black, was chosen by four participants, driven by Black voters. It speaks to something much deeper than a policy preference. It speaks to a foundational question of political belonging: does my participation in democracy actually count?

For the Black voters in our group who are not definite to vote in 2026, this is a key mobilization lever. These voters are not cynical about democracy in the abstract. They’re cynical because they have specific, concrete reasons to believe their votes have been taken from them. Meeting that cynicism with specificity, naming what happened, naming who did it, and making a case for why it matters to show up anyway, is not a generic GOTV message.

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

Georgia is not Iowa. The economic distress is deeper. Health care costs and coverage will be a central issue this fall, and winning campaigns to reach working class voters will tell the story about what’s happening to real families right now. The political disillusionment, particularly among Black voters who have watched their voting power be systematically undermined, also runs deep.

The path to winning requires both persuading skeptical white working-class voters and mobilizing Black voters who have real and specific reasons to question whether their participation changes anything.

Both tasks are achievable but neither is inevitable. We’ll keep watching as campaigns get fully underway in the Peach State.

NEXT WEEK: We look at the top negatives moving working class voters in focus groups across the battleground we tested.

We went to Iowa at the end of April and talked to working-class white voters — women aged 40 to 64, men aged 25 to 54 — the kinds of people who live in the middle of our political universe heading into 2026. Independents. Soft partisans. People who have voted both ways and could again.

Iowa boasts a trifecta of important races, including U.S. Senate, several competitive House races, and a top-tier gubernatorial pickup opportunity. The U.S. Senate seat is an open-seat race after Republican Sen. Joni Ernst declined to seek reelection, creating a rare pickup opportunity for Democrats. Three of the state’s U.S. House seats are competitive in this environment. An additional dynamic to watch is the governor’s race in which state auditor Rob Sand (the only statewide elected Democrat) is in a solid early position. Iowa is a high probability tipping point state for control of the House and Senate, which means white working class voters here could make all the difference.

Here’s what we found.

THE COUNTRY FEELS LIKE A “HOT MESS”

We didn’t even have to ask about politics. Before our groups had properly begun, before anyone knew exactly what we were there to discuss, the word “politics” was already in the room.

When we simply asked people how they were feeling about the country, every single response was negative. Not ambivalent. Not mixed. Everyone was downright negative.

Women used words like “disgusted,” “terrified,” and “full of rage.”

Men were somewhat cooler — “aggravated,” “antsy,” “concerned” — but no less dark.

The country was described, unprompted, as “a hot mess” full of division and uncertainty. The tone among the women was notably more dire from the start.

That’s worth sitting with for a moment. These are not committed Democrats primed to criticize a Republican president. Many of them voted for Trump.

But they do not like where we are today.

THE ECONOMIC SQUEEZE IS REAL

As consistent as it’s been, the economic insecurity these Iowa voters are describing feels acute. It is nothing new for these voters — many said they’ve felt the pressure their whole lives. But what they’re experiencing now feels different even to them. The stories came quickly and without prompting.

Affording groceries, insurance, and kids’ extracurricular activities all presented challenges, while jobs simply don’t pay what they used to.

A self-employed man described spending nearly $3,000 a month on insurance premiums alone — business, health, home, and auto — and said those numbers had roughly tripled over five years. A family of four said they were spending $200 to $300 on groceries for a week and a half, calling it “absolutely insane.” A man with a dual income said he felt more financially secure when he was making far less money — because at least the math still worked.

“My wife and I — we’re making more now than I ever thought we would, and it still does not feel... when I was making exponentially less, I felt more comfortable back then than I do now on a dual income.” -white man

“We’re spending somewhere between $200 to $300 for a week and a half of groceries for a family of four. It’s just getting absolutely insane as far as grocery prices go.” -white man

“Our home and auto insurances went up probably 50% — I bet our total costs went up 50% over the last year and a half.” -white man

The coping strategies people described were also telling. From skipping doctor visits to picking up bartending shifts on top of a day job to keeping adult children at home because neither generation can afford to live independently, these are real sacrifices just to get by.

“We try not to go to the doctor. I have monthly medications, but I have a high deductible health plan, so it’s the lowest cost. I have a health savings account that I maybe put $1,500 in... my monthly prescriptions are cheaper on the good RX than they are with my insurance. I pay for that, and I can’t even benefit from it.” -white woman

“That’s why my three kids are still living at home. It’s because with me being by myself, raising them since 2004, I can’t afford to pay the mortgage and the utilities and everything else, and I’m retiring on top of it and trying to figure out what I’m going to do for Medicare.” – white woman

“I picked up bartending. But the other side of that is a lot of people don’t have disposable income. I also got on with a nonprofit organization because my daughter decided ‘I want to do all-star cheer.’ That’s $380 a month.” -white woman

As these direct quotes illustrate, these are not abstract policy complaints, this is daily life.

WOMEN HAVE TURNED ON TRUMP, AND IT’S PERSONAL, WHILE THE MEN ARE NOT YET READY TO MOVE ON

This is the headline from Iowa, and it deserves to be treated as one.

Women in our groups who had voted for Trump did not sound much different from women who had voted for Harris. When we asked Trump voters how they felt about their vote today, they were notably less defensive than we’ve observed in past research.

The dominant explanation was a phrase worth remembering: “I voted based on the knowledge I had.”

Past tense. That chapter is closed.

Their criticism of Trump wasn’t primarily about policy, though policy came up. It was about character — ego, chaos, a sense of abandonment. One woman who gave Trump the best grade in the group, a C, explained it by saying he’d done some good things “but don’t ask me specifically what.” Another said simply: “He did good the first time, but then the second time, it just sucks.”

When we tallied the grades women gave Trump on his second term and six out of seven women graded Trump a D or an F. Not one graded him above a C.

The men in our groups were still more willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt — just as last year– but that’s a low bar. But unlike in 2025, this time every man graded him a C or below. They criticized him for being too focused on foreign policy and for needing to “shut up and stay off the social media.” More revealing: even the men who were inclined to be charitable struggled, when pressed, to name specific things they liked about Trump’s second-term record.

Like so much about what we hear in these groups, some of it is his lack of attention to lowering costs. His saying the economy is strong may be Trump’s biggest mistake.

When Trump called the economy strong and invoked a “golden age,” it landed like a punch to the gut in both groups — but it was especially damaging with the men who were otherwise most willing to cut him slack.

There’s a critical distinction these voters draw that Democrats should understand clearly: Trump saying outrageous things is one thing. Trump telling them their own struggles aren’t real is something else entirely. The first is politics. The second is a lie about their lives. The second is not forgiven.

The men also drew a sharp distinction that Democratic strategists should pay attention to: they were far more engaged with the details of Iran — exit strategies, control of the Strait of Hormuz, what victory even looks like — while the women simply viewed the entire enterprise as a major misuse of presidential priorities and attention.

NUANCE ON IMMIGRATION

One issue that could raise some concern for Democrats campaigning in the state is immigration. Several participants named immigration as an area where Trump had at least tried to deliver on his promises. But our two focus groups diverged sharply.

The men wanted more ICE enforcement, more deportations, stronger borders. The women were more discomforted by specific actions, particularly the “Minnesota thing,” which they described simply as going too far and “just sad.”

This is a live fault line within the very coalition Democrats need to recapture. Any message on immigration that works for one of these groups risks alienating the other. This is an issue we’ll have to continue to monitor with these swing working class voters.

SOME MOVEMENT ON DEMOCRATIC BRAND, BUT NOT GOOD YET

When we asked voters what Democrats stand for, the most common answer was some version of: they’d say they’re not Trump. Not a vision. Not a policy. Not even a value. Just opposition.

Democrats were also described as “muddled.” Voters — including some who are ready to vote against Republicans — could not articulate a single Democratic policy agenda item they expected Democrats to fight for. Several men mentioned “woke” issues, particularly transgender athletes in sports, as a Democratic vulnerability.

The warning from our 2025 research remains true: Trump’s weakness is not automatically Democratic strength.

The opposition to Trump and change mantra may be just enough in 2026. But we had better get to articulating a vision soon thereafter. Voters need something to vote for, not just something to vote against.

THE MESSAGES THAT BREAK THROUGH

We tested a range of attack messages on Republican candidates. The results were clear.

Cost messages are largely persuasive. Cuts to Medicaid, cuts to SNAP, nursing home staffing standards — these aren’t abstract to women who are often the caregivers in their families, who sit with aging parents and children with disabilities and neighbors who need help. The cuts feel personal because they are personal. Many of the women we talked to were serving as caregivers to multiple generations in their own lives, so it is unsurprising they responded most strongly to messages attacking Republicans’ cuts to health care and food assistance. Interestingly, changing the rules for mandatory staffing minimums at nursing homes also alarmed some women, who had close-up experience with the vulnerabilities in this kind of care.

“The cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are terrifying, because children and people with special needs depend on that to survive. Seniors are getting older and with less money and disposable income, and so they need affordable housing. They need access to medical care. Our rural communities are losing hospitals.” - white woman

“I live it firsthand, not me personally, but I volunteer at a local community shelter, and to see the need of the folks that are coming in now — it’s completely changed over the past two years. Kids are going hungry, adults are going hungry, seniors are going hungry.” white woman)

“I’ve worked in a nursing home too, and I saw how bad the staff was and how understaffed they were, and so the people did not get treated like they needed to be. They didn’t get the care.” (Woman)

For men, corruption is the entry point. Like in North Carolina, the top message overall in Iowa — by a wide margin — was about a Republican who blocked a stock trading ban while enriching themselves in office. Men especially responded viscerally to the idea that members of Congress enter at $174,000 a year and leave worth $30 million. They already believe the system is rigged; a candidate’s stock portfolio is vivid, concrete proof. The utility company message also resonated strongly: monopoly energy providers raising rates while their CEOs get tax cuts is exactly the kind of insider dealing that makes these voters furious.

Abortion is more salient than campaigns assume. Despite the sense in some consulting circles that abortion has been “priced in” and Democrats should move on, it was highly salient in both groups — as a contrast issue, as a hit on Republican candidates, and as part of a broader story about Republicans taking away personal freedoms. We believe this issue warrants continued investment in research and messaging, particularly in combination with health care.

Epstein is also an active issue. The Epstein files message — a Republican who voted to keep them secret — drew a fierce reaction. Women did not see it as a niche political story. They saw it as the powerful protecting predators while victims get nothing.

For men: roads, town halls, and corruption cumulate. Individual messages about avoiding town halls or approving a White House ballroom weren’t knock-outs on their own. But men acknowledged that seeing them together, stacked up, changes how you view a candidate. The road message resonated strongly and locally — Iowa infrastructure is terrible, these voters know it, and a politician who ignores it is a politician who ignores them.

ON THE BALLOT

With competitive races up and down the ballot, it was interesting to us that the Governor’s race attracted some of the most formed discussion.

Rob Sand is the most visible Democrat in the state — aided by early advertising — but awareness of other statewide candidates is thin, and House candidates are unknown.

The 2026 landscape in Iowa will be shaped significantly by whether Democrats can build name recognition and a coherent narrative well before Election Day.

For Sand especially, there’s an openness based on the brand he’s created as state auditor:

“It seems like he wants to fix things with money and accountability and with… the money that’s going for, like the private schools.… He’ll shape things up.”

“I did appreciate him the other day calling out the nonsense with the lack of transparency in the school, in that in the Des Moines school situation with their principal.”

“He’s very focused towards schools. I mean, I’ve heard of him. I just don’t know a lot about his stance.”

“He’s the state auditor.”

The senate and house races are less defined.

The window is open, but it won’t stay open. The anger in these rooms is not partisan anger. It’s the anger of people who feel let down, squeezed, and lied to. That’s an opening for Democrats — but only if Democrats give these voters something concrete to hold onto. Vague opposition to Trump won’t be enough. Specific promises, credibly made, about the economic pressures these families face every day: that’s the work.

Iowa is not a gimme. But it’s in play in ways it hasn’t been in a long time. We’ll be watching.

NEXT WEEK: We hear from swing working class voters in focus groups in Georgia, a key Senate and Gubernatorial battleground.

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In late April, we conducted two virtual focus groups with white working class swing voters in North Carolina– one with women, one with men. Most participants voted for Trump in 2024.

As one of two Republican-held U.S. Senate seats rated “tossup,” North Carolina is a top-tier battleground in the midterms. And following Senator Thom Tillis’ retirement, the state is one of Democrats’ best pickup opportunities. The race is between former Gov. Roy Cooper and RNC Chair Michael Whatley after both secured their nominations. The state also boasts several competitive House races and several that are on the cusp of being competitive if conditions continue to shift against President Trump and Congressional Republicans.

Working class voters in the state will tip the scales in either direction.

What we heard should give Democrats both real cause for optimism and a clear-eyed sense of the work still ahead.

The headline: Trump and the GOP’s support is fracturing due to the economy — and the war in Iran is a crack that’s widening it.

THE COST OF LIVING IS STILL THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT REALLY MATTERS

If you’ve been following this newsletter and our work the past year, none of this will surprise you. Working class voters in every state we’ve visited lead with the same concern: everything costs too much, wages aren’t keeping up, and life feels unsustainable.

North Carolina is no different.

“The prices of everything. Nobody can afford to live these days.” — white man

“Duke Energy has monopolized the industry in our area of North Carolina and they know that they have us. And the only way we’re going to be able to get out of it is to move… People like me, we can’t afford to pay a thousand dollars a month in our bill.” — white woman

“You are going to have more and more people dying because they’re not going to be able to afford health care. It’s already a big deal because our copays went up and our benefits went down.” – white woman

These voters rattled off a familiar list: groceries, gas, utilities, health care. When probed on health insurance specifically, they had horror stories — one man said his wife is being denied coverage for life-saving medication. They agreed that health care prices are “ridiculous,” even if they didn’t bring it up unprompted.

The frustration isn’t abstract. It’s increasing electric bills. It’s choosing between a car payment and rent. It’s the expense of urgent medical care.

On tariffs, another topic that has dominated economic discussions at times, voters are skeptical but not as uniformly hostile as we found in groups last year. A few people mentioned tariffs as a driver of inflation (including on products at work), and most agree that, so far, they have hurt Americans more than helped them. However, they were less of a top of mind concern than we’ve seen in the past.

TRUMP IS LOSING THEM — AND IRAN IS WHY

Most participants voted for Trump in 2024 and still give him grudging credit for inheriting a bad economy. But patience is running out. Not a single participant gave him an A. Most clustered in the B and C range — and several gave him an F.

What’s driving the decline?

The economy (as noted above), coupled with the war.

These voters don’t understand why we’re fighting in Iran. They can’t explain what the goal is. They’re skeptical it will end anytime soon. And they’re furious about what it’s costing them — at the gas pump, in their tax dollars, and in Trump’s own distracted attention.

“The people can’t make it more than paycheck to paycheck, and he’s worried about the bullies across the ocean.” — white man

“Recently, with the Iran thing, I’m a little shaken by that and with not being able to afford things, because the fuel expense and everything else goes up. It honestly has really devastated me.” – white man

“It was kind of scary to think, here we are after all this time going into war again.” — white woman

“Iran is not going to roll over and stop being a terrorist country.” – white man

The split-screen image — Trump focused on foreign conflicts while working families can’t afford basics — dominated both groups in the Tarheel state. These are not anti-war voters in an ideological sense. They’re just exhausted and feel left behind. And when Trump says the economy is strong, they don’t just disagree, they are downright offended.

“That’s crock. I’m not calling him a boldfaced liar, but that was a lie. If anybody thinks that inflation is over, they haven’t gone to the grocery store lately or stepped outside and got gas.” — white man

THE DEMOCRATIC BRAND IS STILL WEAK — BUT THE OPENING IS REAL

We have to be honest about what we hear. These voters still lean Republican. They think Democrats don’t stand for anything except fighting Trump. They couldn’t articulate a positive Democratic agenda when asked. And one pointed to the government shutdown as an example of Democrats being needlessly combative rather than constructive. But something has shifted. More than a year into unified Republican control, these voters aren’t seeing results. And many — especially the women — said they’re ready to give Democrats a chance as a “change” vote.

“I would rather give the Democrats a chance at changing things because the Republicans so far are showing us that they don’t know exactly what they’re doing.” — white woman

That’s not enthusiasm. But in a midterm election, it’s enough.

CORRUPTION *COULD* HELP UNLOCK THE DOOR

Among the most actionable findings from these groups: corruption messaging is starting to break through.

For the last year of The Working Class Project, we have seen voters assume politicians are corrupt on both sides.

Here in North Carolina, a white man gave a very familiar refrain: “I think they’re all corrupt in the same way that they’re receiving money from big companies and other countries in order to influence what should or shouldn’t happen rather than listening to the population.”

That cynicism sounds like a dead end — but it’s actually an opening. Because when you give them specific, concrete examples of Trump and Congressional Republicans taking money from special interests and voting to protect those interests over their constituents’ pocket books, it lands. It confirms what they already suspect. And it moves votes.

The single top-testing negative hit across both groups: a Republican who refused to pass a stock trading ban, letting members of Congress keep making millions off insider deals.

Also highly effective were:

• A Republican who took millions from big tech companies and voted to ban states from regulating AI — making it illegal to protect kids and seniors from AI abuses

• A Republican who took money from big utility companies, let them jack up energy rates, and repealed energy tax credits used by 89,000 North Carolina households

Health care costs and corruption messaging worked in both groups. Voters are negative on the state of health care in America, and frustrated that Republicans are making the problem worse by voting to gut Medicaid. So these messages connect several dots for voters:

• A Republican who voted to gut Medicaid, kicking 600,000 North Carolinians off coverage and shuttering rural hospitals — while driving a nearly 29% average insurance premium spike for close to a million residents

• A Republican who took hundreds of thousands from big pharma and insurance companies, then voted against capping insulin costs

One important note on framing: these voters don’t need the vocabulary of corruption explained to them in academic terms. Keep it simple: It’s about fairness. Politicians are taking money from big companies and then vote to protect those interests which makes your life harder (and more expensive). That is grounded in what they already believe.

Overall, the door is open in North Carolina. These former Trump working class voters aren’t persuaded voters yet. But they are persuadable. And that’s more than we could say a year ago.

NEXT WEEK: We hear from swing working class voters in focus groups in Iowa, a key House, Senate and Gubernatorial battleground.

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Across several days in April, we reconnected with nearly 20 working class voters in battleground states who have been part of our research since the spring of 2025. All of them voted for Donald Trump in 2024. We asked them about the economy, the war in Iran, immigration, and how they’re thinking about their vote this November.

What they told us should get Democrats’ attention.

THE HEADLINE: TRUMP’S SUPPORT HAS DECLINED AMONG HIS OWN WORKING CLASS VOTERS

When we first started talking with these voters in March 2025, within the first 100 days of the Trump Administration, there was real optimism. They had voted for Trump, many enthusiastically, and were hopeful he would focus on their priorities — lowering costs, reining in government spending, and keeping the country out of new wars. As the year progressed, that optimism turned to concern.

A year later, that optimism is gone.

We track Trump’s approval using a simple grade-based system that we convert to a GPA. In June 2025, his GPA with this group was a solid 2.96, with many saying they liked his policies but took issue with his style. Now in April 2026, it has plummeted to 1.46 — from among the same people, tracked over time. His economic GPA has fallen from 2.46 to 1.67, with half of participants now giving him a failing grade on the economy.

A plurality now give Trump a “D” overall. Several said this term is worse than his first. Many felt that he has broken his promises and they’re not getting what they voted for.

“He is basically doing everything he said he wouldn’t do and failed to upkeep his promises.” — 38-year-old white man from North Carolina, who gave Trump a B- in March 2025

“I don’t think he did a bad job his first term but I would actively say he is doing a bad job now and I am actually scared.” — 26-year-old white woman from Minnesota

“It appears that we are in a worse situation than before. It doesn’t seem as though we are getting anything that we voted for.” — 47-year-old Black woman from Georgia, who said in March 2025 that she was “excited and curious” to see where Trump’s changes would take America

THE ECONOMY: THINGS HAVE ONLY GOTTEN WORSE

Costs were the top concern for these voters a year ago, and it remains their top concern today — but the mood has darkened considerably.

These voters are deeply unhappy with the economy and believe it has only gotten worse. As we saw last year, they are frustrated with the high cost of groceries, housing, and utilities, and now, unlike last year, they complained about gas prices spiking. They do not see positives in the economy today and are not particularly hopeful that it will get better soon. In our earliest discussions with these voters in March of 2025, they articulated a sense of hopefulness that Trump would take meaningful action to get costs under control, and now more than a year later they feel as though things are worse than they’ve ever been.

In March 2025, these voters gave Trump the benefit of the doubt on the economy and hoped that the impact of tariffs would ultimately bear out. They were patient. They expected him to get prices under control. Today, they feel like things are worse than they’ve ever been.

They’re cutting back on food, on streaming services, on trips to see family. One participant said rising gas prices are costing him an extra $100 a month. Two separately brought up shopping for Easter candy as a moment of sticker shock that crystallized how bad things have gotten.

“[The economy] is a lot worse. Things were still expensive a year ago but it just keeps getting worse and worse.” — 26-year-old white woman from Minnesota

“I’ve cut back on unnecessary spending. No more going to the movies and no more going out to eat.” — 50-year-old Hispanic woman from Texas, who said in March 2025 that she didn’t think Americans had “anything to worry about”

Nearly all of them (13 of 16) rate the economy as “not so good” or “poor.” Most (9 of 16) say nothing is giving them hope right now. Many believe the country could be headed toward a recession.

These voters also widely blame corporate price gouging — not just policy — for inflation. They believe that when prices go up, companies keep them up, even when their own costs come down. This sense that the “people at the top” are rigging the system in their favor runs through virtually every conversation.

THE WAR IN IRAN IS TRUMP’S BIGGEST VULNERABILITY — BY FAR

Of every issue we tested, the war in Iran generated the most intense and consistent backlash.

For many participants, it was their tipping point frustration with Trump — and the most unexpected thing he has done in office. They see it as hypocritical (he campaigned on staying out of foreign wars), pointless, and an economic drag that is making their lives materially worse. Gas prices are up, and many blame the war directly. Others view it as a distraction from their top priority: the economy.

Nearly everyone — 12 out of 15 — disapproves of Trump’s handling of the war specifically. And 12 out of 15 want Congress to use its power to stop him on Iran — more than on any other issue we tested, by a wide margin.

When we showed participants clips of Trump bragging about being a “peaceful president” and saying he would know in his bones when to end the war, the reaction was visceral. They called him a liar. Several questioned his mental fitness.

“A big reason I voted for him was for his foreign policy. I feel duped and completely dumb for falling for it.” — 34-year-old white man from Arizona

When asked whether going to war with Iran was worth it to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, 12 out of 15 said no — it wasn’t worth it because it is making Americans’ lives worse. The nuclear threat argument simply is not convincing to this group.

On funding: the Trump administration has asked Congress for $200 billion to continue the war. 13 out of 15 participants oppose that funding — and 10 of those 13 strongly oppose it.

IMMIGRATION: STILL IMPORTANT, BUT THE MOOD HAS SHIFTED

A year ago, immigration was one of the top things this group liked about Trump. 15 out of 28 participants in our 2025 research voluntarily brought up his immigration actions as something they approved of. This year? Only 3 out of 16 raised immigration as something they liked — while 5 raised it as an area of disappointment. Still, border security remains Trump’s best issue among this group of voters (7 approve, 8 disapprove) and it matters to them. But since the killings in Minnesota and the ICE protests, a majority (9/15) have soured on ICE specifically. They describe ICE’s tactics as overly aggressive, and they are upset about killings of U.S. citizens, officers trespassing on private property, and wrongful arrests.

The key nuance here: they still want the border secured and illegal immigration stopped. But they want it done the right way. They are very open to the idea of reforming ICE and by and large supported the reforms we tested, especially adding more training for ICE agents.

This is a politically interesting moment: when told that Democrats were demanding ICE reforms as a condition of funding the Department of Homeland Security, participants — initially split on who to blame for the shutdown — shifted toward blaming Republicans for refusing to reform the agency. 11 out of 15 said they’d blame Republicans for refusing to reform ICE, versus just 4 who’d blame Democrats for insisting on reforms.

While it appears the shutdown is over, this is an issue that will linger and is worth watching.

LACK OF AWARENESS ON HEALTHCARE A CONCERN

If there is an area of concern for Democrats this fall, it is the simple lack of awareness of the healthcare disruption that is coming with the Medicaid cuts from the Big Beautiful Bill.

These voters disagree with Trump’s healthcare cuts, but they are not top of mind.

Much like we heard last year, awareness of the Big Beautiful Bill is low, and most participants are unaware of the impending healthcare cuts.

A majority of the participants wanted to see Congress rein Trump in on his changes to Medicaid, but without prompting, this did not arise as an area where they were disappointed or frustrated with Trump.

WHERE DEMOCRATS HAVE AN OPENING

Perhaps the most important finding from this round of research: these voters are no longer locked in.

In June 2025, 9 out of 26 participants said they planned to vote Republican for Congress, and just 1 planned to vote Democratic. Now, with the same group: 4 say Republican, 2 say Democrat, and 9 are undecided.

That’s a notable shift among these prior Trump voters. And several of those undecided voters explicitly said they are strongly considering voting for Democrats because they are unhappy with the status quo.

“I usually vote all Republican but not this time. There needs to be change in some of my state’s seats. I can’t believe I just said that but it’s true.” — 50-year-old Hispanic woman from Texas

“I’m gonna take a look at this more in depth but [I have] a strong lean towards Democrats.” — 44-year-old white man from Maine

What do these voters respond to? Populist economic policies, especially ones that crack down on corporate power and hold the wealthy accountable.

On government corruption, two proposals tied at the top: making it a crime for members of Congress to vote on laws that benefit their own bottom line, and banning members of Congress from owning and trading stocks.

This last one sparked real passion. These voters are deeply suspicious of insider trading and believe Congress should be serving constituents, not enriching themselves. Multiple participants said that if Democrats were championing these kinds of reforms, it would make them more likely to vote Democratic.

WHAT THIS MEANS

These findings don’t tell us Democrats have this in the bag. Democrats remain at a deficit with this Trump-centric group— and the most common criticism remains that the party is too focused on social and “woke” issues and not focused enough on economic concerns. But when voters know what Democrats stand for lowering costs, protecting and lowering the cost of health care, and corporate accountability, it moves them.

The challenge is that they often don’t know. That makes the opportunity real. These are Trump voters who are now in play. They are hurting economically. They are furious about a war they didn’t ask for. They are open to a change — and when presented with a Democratic economic agenda focused on rewarding work, holding corporations accountable, and cracking down on corruption, they respond.

The door is open. The question is whether Democrats walk through it.

This research is based on a multi-day QualBoard conducted in April 2026, among 16 working class swing voters in battleground states who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 and participated in the 2025 longitudinal QualBoard. The research was conducted by Impact Research for American Bridge 21st Century.

NEXT UP: We hear from swing working class voters in focus groups in North Carolina, a key House and Senate battleground.

Last fall, we published a summary of our initial research and recommendations for a practical, informed path forward. Earlier this month, we launched a slate of new research through The Working Class Project — and the timing couldn’t be more urgent.

Download: The Working Class Project 2025 Report

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With midterms now in front of us, Democrats face a defining question: Can we make a credible, lasting case that we stand with working people? Not just in our rhetoric, but in our policies, our priorities, our outreach, and our willingness to be honest about where we’ve fallen short?

The data coming in right now tells a complicated but, frankly, hopeful story — if we pay attention.

Democrats are winning and over-performing in elections up and down the ballot, from coast to coast and everywhere in between. Here’s what we’re watching.

The coalition Trump built is cracking.

Trump promised he would lower costs. He said he would end foreign wars. He said he would bring back American manufacturing.

His policies have led to the opposite. And his 2024 coalition is taking note.

In 2024, white voters without a college degree supported Trump by 34 points. The lowest-income voters (households making under $50,000) broke for Trump in record numbers in 2024, with a Republican winning that group for the first time since the 1960s. But that trend is now reversing — and it’s reversing hard and fast. His approval with voters earning under $50,000 a year is now over 20 points underwater. Today, his advantage with white non-college voters has also all but evaporated — his approval rating among this group sits barely above water.

These are the voters Trump promised to rescue. He said he would “fix it.” But they’re not feeling rescued. And the economy is surely not fixed for them.

Working-class voters are again feeling hurt by a combination of costs, chaos, and corruption. The biggest driver is high costs.

But let’s be clear: working-class voters leaving Trump is not the same thing as working-class voters coming home to Democrats. That work still has to be done. It has to be earned. And it starts with recognizing what’s actually happening in people’s lives.

The tariff chaos is a tax on working people.

After the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s original tariffs, 24 states filed suit to block his new global tariffs, imposed under a provision of the Trade Act of 1974 that has never before been invoked. Arizona’s Attorney General pointed to a Federal Reserve study estimating that Americans bear the cost of these tariffs at roughly $1,200 per household per year — money out of the pockets of families trying to buy groceries, pay rent, and keep small businesses afloat. The tariffs are also hurting working families in rural America, including ag interests.

That’s not a trade policy. That’s a regressive tax, and working people are still paying it more for virtually everything in their daily lives.

Health care costs are crushing working families.

A new West Health-Gallup survey of nearly 20,000 adults found that roughly one-third of Americans — the equivalent of more than 82 million people — have made at least one financial trade-off to pay for health care. The most common sacrifices included rationing prescriptions, not following medical guidance, and borrowing money — 15 percent of respondents reported each of those steps. Some cut spending on food or household utilities. And the situation is getting worse: nearly half of U.S. adults worry they will not be able to afford necessary health care in 2026 — the highest level of concern recorded since tracking began in 2021.

This will be put into further focus as Democrats remind voters of the Trump and Republican cuts coming to Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.

As we saw last year in our ads in Virginia, the healthcare cost issue, including Medicaid cuts, is potent. This is a working-class crisis. It is hiding in plain sight.

Trump’s war is sending gas prices through the roof.

Over one month into Trump’s war of choice with Iran, the price of gas has jumped to more than $4 per gallon nationwide – more than a dollar per gallon higher than when the fighting broke out. The cost of diesel and jet fuel is also skyrocketing. Working-class folks are already feeling these price spikes at the pump and in their pocketbooks every day – and they’ll soon start bearing the downstream effects more acutely, too: food will cost more as fertilizer and shipping costs go up; summer trips with the kids will become prohibitively expensive; small businesses will struggle.

Economists say that Trump’s war is already amounting to yet another tax on working-class people, and there’s no end in sight.

We’re onto something.

Over the coming months, The Working Class Project will be publishing new research and analysis across all of these fronts — the political realignment underway, the health care squeeze, rural hospital impacts, and the real economic costs of this administration’s agenda. We’re going to go beyond the polling and into people’s lives. And we’re going to offer new recommendations to help Democrats earn back the support of working-class voters.

The midterms are coming. The data is moving. But data doesn’t win elections — connection does. That’s what this project is about.

Stay with us.

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Coming up soon: We go back to Biden-Trump voters we talked to last year to see what’s changed and how they view voting for Democrats this fall.

Readers of the Working Class Project’s research this past year know that this is gaslighting; none of it is true. As our dozens of focus groups with hundreds of voters made clear, working class Americans are, in reality, frustrated, anxious, and struggling with their financial reality – because inflation under Trump is killing them, as are Trump’s chaotic tariff policies, because buying a home feels increasingly unattainable, and because everything from health care to food is getting more expensive.

Indeed, as American Bridge 21st Century highlighted today in advance of the speech:

• The MAGA agenda is slashing critical support for health care, food assistance, child care, education (including special education), agricultural programs, and more – all to pay for huge tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.

• New data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows Trump’s economy created 403,000 fewer jobs in 2025 than initially reported.

• Reports show that hiring is stalling while layoffs remain steady, revealing a labor market that is cooling dangerously and threatening family security across the country. Far from creating opportunity, the Trump economy is leaving workers stuck in stagnant jobs with rising uncertainty.

• New reporting shows the United States trade deficit stayed historically large in 2025 and did not shrink despite Trump’s repeated claims that his tariffs would rescue American manufacturing and protect jobs.

• Donald Trump has failed to deliver on his promise to make housing affordable for the next generation. The numbers reveal that under Trump, construction is slowing, and the homes young people need to start stable lives are not being built.

Remember all of that when the President tells the American people tonight that our country is “strong, prosperous, and respected.” Because hardworking, decent, working class Americans – the people who make our country great, the people who Trump has repeatedly and egregiously broken his promises to – have never felt as abandoned, hopeless, and disrespected as they do today.

Democrats have to win back the support of the working class, including men and working folks in places we haven’t been competitive, such as the South and the Heartland. If we don’t, our governing coalition may well cease to exist. And we can’t earn working-class votes without listening to and learning from them.

That’s why we launched the Working Class Project – the biggest and most extensive working-class research investment in the Democratic Party. Our new report, which you can download below, discusses what we learned over the last nine months, as we conducted dozens of focus groups and roundtables, surveys, an in-depth study of media consumption habits, and other qualitative and quantitative research across 21 states.

Download: The Working Class Project 2025 Report

10.6MB ∙ PDF file

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What we found wasn’t always pretty: I’m a proud Democrat who was twice elected statewide in Louisiana, but the way I heard working-class voters describe my party was often unrecognizable. But we also found plenty of reasons for optimism: The people we talked to don’t think Trump is delivering on his promises to lower costs; in fact, his tariffs are killing working folks. They don’t like how he’s cut their health care. They really don’t like all the ways he’s helped his rich friends scam the system. And they’re hungry for authentically normal candidates; candidates fighting to ensure hardworking, decent people – the people who make our country great – are respected and rewarded.

That ethos defined Democrats for generations – ever since FDR pulled our nation back from the brink of economic and social disaster in the midst of the Great Depression. We can, and must, again be the party of the American Dream, and of American dreamers. Our initial research offers us a practical, informed, and necessary path forward.

This is not the end of our work, but the beginning. We will continue to provide research and insights on winning back working-class voters, and more details on our findings from this year, in the coming weeks and months.

Mitch Landrieu
Co-chair, Democracy Matters and American Bridge 21st Century

Executive Summary
The Working Class Project: 2025 Report

Working-class voters perceive Democrats to be woke, weak, and out-of-touch, too focused on social issues and not nearly focused enough on the economic issues that impact everyone, every day. But Democrats can win back these working-class voters, in 2026 and beyond.

Nearly one year since Trump was reelected, a solid majority of working-class voters remain frustrated, anxious, or struggling with their financial realities – and they aren’t optimistic any of that will change. They are worried about inflation, and about their paychecks keeping pace; about the price and attainability of both housing and health care; about the job market, Trump’s chaotic tariff policies, and their sense of stability. These Americans define themselves by their hard work and self-sufficiency, but feel like neither trait is rewarded in our economy. They’re angry – not necessarily at the wealthy, but at an unfair and rigged system where politicians give the rich and powerful all the breaks. And they’re disappointed Trump and Republicans aren’t helping them, viewing them as more focused on picking fights and looking out for themselves than on reducing how much everything costs.

This provides Democrats with an opening. To earn back the votes of working-class Americans, our Party needs to make clear it values people who work hard. Instead of denigrating or contrasting ourselves with Republicans, Democrats need to advocate for our own policy agenda, one that first-and-foremost rewards hard-working, fair-playing people – an agenda that helps them get ahead, not just get by; an agenda that ensures health care is affordable, homeownership is obtainable, and retirement is possible. And because the status quo feels broken, Democrats shouldn’t be afraid to acknowledge we need big, bold, aggressive changes, across the board.

There’s no one perfect model for Democrats to follow as we try to earn back working-class votes and work our way out of the political wilderness. But Democrats who are authentically relatable, clear, and respectful in how they communicate connect most with the working class.

Finally, when and where we reach these voters also matters. They still increasingly get their information from, and form their opinions on, non-traditional platforms – particularly YouTube and TikTok – and Democrats need to build up their presence on these channels.

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Summary of Research
The Working Class Project: 2025 Report

The Working Class Project conducted:

• 39 focus group discussions with nearly 400 collective working-class voters across 21 states, from February to August.

• A two-phase media consumption study among working-class voters across 21 states in the spring. This included an online survey of 7,555 voters, of whom 2,179 self-identified as working class, and media-usage diary research, in which survey respondents were asked to complete a detailed diary of their media usage over 24 hours. A total of 474 working-class voters participated in this diary research.

• Weekly longitudinal qualitative research over 13 weeks from March to June, among a fixed group of 28 self-identified working-class swing voters across battleground states who voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Participants responded to and discussed new questions each week, focused on Trump’s actions in office, party brands, and current events.

• Monthly longitudinal quantitative research in April, May, and June. Each wave included 1,000 interviews via an online panel among self-identified working-class voters, who were asked a series of tracking questions to measure movement, and new questions to capture reactions to unfolding national events.

• A benchmark messaging survey of more than 3,000 working-class voters across 21 states. This survey consolidated the most resonant message frames borne from focus group discussions and longitudinal qualitative boards to assess how they moved voters on a generic ballot and congressional vote. Messages covered issue areas focused on the economy and rising costs, tariffs, health care, corruption, immigration and LGBTQ+ issues, specifically focused on trans issues that continued to arise in each focus group.

• Ad testing in September and October that assessed messages that performed well in the benchmark survey, integrated into various ad treatments, and tested in Virginia as well as the remaining 20 states in which we conducted research.

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This week, we want to share some new polling data on how swing state working class voters perceive Democrats and Republicans – and what Democratic messaging could attract support for Democrats on a generic midterm ballot.

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The poll of 3,000 working class voters was taken across 21 states from August 18-27. Overall, these self-identified working class voters supported President Trump by seven points in 2024, yet the poll found significant opportunities for Democrats in a generic ballot midterm matchup.

TOPLINES

• Working class voters overwhelmingly disapprove of the job President Trump is doing on lowering the cost of living, even as they remain split evenly on his overall approval and favorability.

• Working class voters prefer Democratic messaging focused on rewarding and valuing hard work vs. overhauling broken systems and criticizing the wealthy. This messaging helps improve Democrats’ standing among working class voters on the economy.

• Democrats face dual challenges on economic and cultural issues and need to address both. Calling out politicians’ obsession with social issues helps attract more working class support.

HOW WORKING CLASS VOTERS PERCEIVE TRUMP – AND THE TRUMP ECONOMY

President Trump’s success winning working class voters in 2024 has been well-documented throughout our project. So it’s no surprise that the sample of voters in this poll supported Trump by seven points in 2024 and identify as Republican by six points. Despite that, Democrats are competitive in a generic ballot matchup, which suggests opportunity for next year’s midterms.

Trump’s favorability and approval rating among these voters remains even – but while many voters are still hopeful their economic circumstances will improve over the next year, they overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump’s performance on lowering the cost of living.

These findings show how important Democrats’ economic messaging will be over the next year, as they seek to win back congressional majorities in the midterms. People are hopeful, but Trump isn’t getting much benefit for that right now. Whether that holds is an open question. Across our focus groups, we’ve heard voters express sentiments like: Things are so bad now, they have to get better, or: I can’t imagine it getting any worse. It will be up to Democrats to convince these voters that they can be trusted to create economic improvements in working people’s lives.

To try to identify what Democrats should do to improve their own economic branding, we tested out different messages based on what we’ve heard across 40+ focus groups and asked working class voters what they wanted to see from Democrats.

WHAT SHOULD DEMOCRATS DO TO WIN OVER WORKING CLASS VOTERS ON THE ECONOMY?

One major takeaway from this polling is that Democrats’ messaging cannot just be focused on what Republicans (or even Democrats) are doing wrong. Democrats need to make a positive case for what defines them. Similarly, we’ve found that it’s time for Democrats to move on from trashing the stereotypes or caricatures of what people perceive the Democratic Party to be. Focusing on how bad the current Democratic Party is does nothing to communicate to voters what Democrats actually stand for.

Throughout this project, including our many focus groups across the country this year, we have heard working class voters say the Democratic Party doesn’t value working hard for a living and often vilifies success. Our polling confirms this – and proves that language on hard work and wanting people to be successful needs to be part of Democratic messaging going forward. In our forced-choice questions, this out-performed messaging that prioritized criticizing the wealthy and corporations.

We’re not saying Democrats should abandon populism or their commitment to fairness or accountability. But talking about bringing down costs for working people and ensuring corporations are paying their fair share performs better than a focus on attacking the wealthy. As we wrote in June, working class voters have repeatedly told us that they interpret Democrats’ attacks on wealth as punishing hard work and success, when they really want us to crack down on corruption and those who abuse the system to benefit themselves.

When Democrats talk about systemic change or lean on populist messaging, it is critical to focus on tangible actions that reduce people’s cost of living and make it easier for people who work hard to find success.

When it comes to these issues, bringing down health care costs remains Democrats’ most popular brand identity. But focusing on things like cutting taxes for middle and working class families, raising the minimum wage, capping prescription drug costs, cracking down on price gouging, and making sure corporations and billionaires are paying their fair share also draw support from working class voters and help improve their perception of Democrats on the economy.

WHAT ABOUT SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ISSUES?

Democrats face dual challenges on economic and cultural issues and need to address both. Throughout this project, we’ve heard that working class voters think Democrats are too far left and often prioritize liberal social issues over economic issues. Over the past year, trans issues have taken center stage – as Trump, during the campaign and after, has sought to use them as a wedge to attack Democrats, divide voters, and win. But this could just as well be said about immigration or crime.

What we saw in this poll is that working class voters prefer candidates who vocally argue we all – Democrats and Republicans – need to stop obsessing over these issues, instead of taking the liberal or conservative position on them.

One of the most persuasive messages for growing Democratic support among working class voters on the generic ballot, especially among Independents, was: Our country is facing major challenges. Politicians should be doing everything they can to get costs down, but they would rather obsess over issues like transgender kids than propose real solutions that improve people's lives. We need to figure out how to bring down costs and expand opportunities for young people, not stir up more controversy and division.

Some of the least effective messaging for working class voters centered on stressing compassion, trying to fact check GOP attacks, or attempting to turn the attacks on Republicans by accusing them of forcing gender checks for young girls. These messages play into what the polling above demonstrated was the wrong approach: to dive headfirst into either “side’s” position.

Many working class voters do have passionate views on the substance of these issues – and Democrats need to be mindful of that. But most working-class voters care more about focusing on other issues (like the cost of living) than getting transgender policies to align exactly with their beliefs. Clearly there is room to make progress by calling out the recent obsession in our politics over social and cultural issues and stressing the need to focus on economic challenges facing all Americans.

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Two weeks ago, we conducted focus groups with working class voters in Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas – just as one of the senior Republican Senators from those states, Joni Ernst, opted against a re-election run. Perhaps that was no surprise, since what we heard offers a glimpse into real midterm opportunities for Democrats to earn back support from the working class.

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This was a regional snapshot of the kinds of places and the key swing voters there that can make a majority in Congress and expand Democrats’ appeal beyond the coasts, big cities, and suburbs. These are places Democrats have won before when they were on offense – winning governorships like Laura Kelly did in Kansas, or key congressional races in Iowa like Abby Finkenauer and Cindy Axne did in 2018. And Nebraska’s second congressional district is one of the country’s top battleground districts, last year voting for a Republican for Congress, Independent for Senate, and Democrat for President.

In our groups in the region, we heard ongoing economic stress that is causing real cracks for Republicans, and the One Big Beautiful Bill is their biggest vulnerability. And while nearly all participants voted for President Trump in 2024, they’re not sold on Republicans in Congress – and are open to supporting atypical Democrats who defy these voters’ current stereotypes and expectations of the Democratic Party.

ECONOMIC CONCERNS AND THE ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL

Across these three states, cost pains remain dire, and voters are frustrated that the cost of living has not improved. In addition to thinking Trump is not focused on lowering costs, the swingiest participants in our focus groups had concerns about his execution of tariffs, which they blame for raising prices.

For example, in an Iowa focus group with working class women, not a single participant said the economy had gotten better in the past few months – and every participant said they expected it to be the same in a year.

While some of the voters we heard from are willing to give President Trump time for his policies to yield positive results, there is an overwhelming sense that progress has not yet been made. And when they express concerns for the country, they consistently repeated words like “uncertainty,” “chaos,” and “unsettled.” They don’t feel like the people in power – which currently, in Washington, are Republicans – have made the progress they’re seeking.

As such, no issue better illustrates the pitfalls for Republicans and opportunities for Democrats than how the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill.

There is universal awareness of the bill and it’s viewed negatively, but knowledge is still only surface level. Voters across these groups have heard vague things about cuts, particularly to Social Security and health care. In our focus group with white women in Iowa, for example, every single participant was aware of Ernst’s “we’re all going to die” clip, with many noting it was callous and out-of-touch with their struggles. (It’s easy to see why she called it quits...) Voters also expressed concerns with other cuts coming out of the Trump Administration. In Kansas, one woman brought up research funding cuts at Kansas State University leading to lost jobs.

When given more specific information, participants became even more concerned – especially about Medicaid and SNAP cuts. When provided a list of policies in the bill, a majority said that the parts that seem good, like no tax on tips, don’t outweigh the cons, like health care cuts.

It would be a mistake to assume voters know what the One Big Beautiful Bill as a whole is — it’s clear that Democrats could make the most headway by focusing on the individual cuts it makes, and the specific harms it causes, instead of just short-handing as the One Big Beautiful Bill and assuming people know what it does.

We tested messages with these voters, and far and away these were the most effective:

EVEN IF THEY VOTED FOR TRUMP, WORKING CLASS VOTERS ARE OPEN TO ATYPICAL DEMOCRATS

The working class voters we’re hearing from continue to be critical of the Democratic Party overall. Their complaints echo what we’ve heard throughout this project: Democrats don’t stand for anything other than opposition to Trump… Democrats are fixated on liberal social issues instead of the economy… Et cetera, et cetera. We’ve written about these problems extensively since the spring.

But these voters are not excited about Republicans in Congress either. Despite overwhelmingly voting for Trump in 2024, their midterm preferences can shift based on what kind of messaging they hear from Democrats. In fact, in these focus groups, participants shifted in favor of Democrats after hearing what we’ll call “atypical” Democratic messaging.

Many voters’ concerns about Democrats were assuaged when asked what they’d think of a Democrat who said it’s time to stop obsessing over divisive social issues and instead focus on the economy and getting costs under control. Many of the men we heard from liked the idea of a Democrat who proposed conducting a full audit of all federal government spending to eliminate waste.

Listening to these voters in Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas, there’s clearly an opening for Democrats to speak to people’s frustration with a lack of economic progress under unified Republican control of Washington – and to inform working class voters about the damage the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill is causing for people’s health care. Republicans are not continuing to see strong support among these voters, even after Trump largely won them in 2024, and Democrats have an opportunity to win them over.

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We know it’s the middle of summer, and you’ve been reading our Substack posts for months now. We appreciate you being a loyal subscriber, and we’re going to take a few weeks off from hitting your inbox the rest of August. We’ll be back in September with new findings and research.

But first – this week, we want to share some unique insights from focus groups we’ve conducted specifically with working class Americans who did not vote in 2024.

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In these groups, we’ve heard the strongest expressions yet of being disaffected by and defiant of the current political status quo. These are individuals who care a lot about their communities, and really want to see progress in their daily lives (especially economically) – but feel completely left out and left behind by the system and by politicians they don’t believe will fight and deliver for them.

These working class Americans are folks that Democrats ought to be earning support from (and in many instances, used to vote for Democrats). But they aren’t. And while their disgust with the status quo hurt Democrats in 2024, there are signs this could shift in 2026 and 2028. They don’t really like what they’re seeing from Trump, like on his spending priorities or tariffs, but they need to see an authentic and believable alternative.

Listening to their views, in their own words, can help us better understand how Democrats could win them back.

WHY DIDN’T THEY VOTE IN 2024?

These focus group participants were deeply disaffected by the status quo of government and politics. They expressed strong beliefs that the system is broken and that politicians play games to try to earn votes, instead of delivering results that help regular people’s lives.

Just listen to what some participants in a Colorado Hispanic focus group this spring had to say.

You can hear how disaffected by politics and politicians they are.

• As one man succinctly put it: “I think our system is completely and utterly broken, and I have nothing positive to say about it.”

• For another woman, it was how no politicians had ever seemed to deliver for her economically: “The same thing over and over, promises made really not kept. No real change.”

• A second woman couldn’t support the Democrats because of what she saw as inauthenticity, specifically citing contradictions between pronouncements that America should be a strong, clear, moral global leader and a failure to speak out forcefully enough about the situation in Gaza: “If they are saying that they care about the people, if they're saying that they want to help, that they want to be a strong leader in the world, and then they do the opposite, then I can't vouch for them. Either take a strong stance on something or don't don't contradict yourself.”

In all these comments, there’s an overriding sense that the status quo has failed them, that politicians are phony and put their own political interests above the people’s, and that – no matter who they vote for – they have little expectation that their vote will make a difference to their daily lived experience.

Despite this defiance of our political status quo, they did share candid views of what could change their minds and get them to vote again.

WHAT DO THEY WANT TO SEE FROM OUR POLITICS AND POLITICIANS?

Despite their defiance and disaffection, many of the non-voters we heard from wanted politicians to more squarely focus on getting more money into their pockets. They consistently said this was something that could get them to support a Democrat or other politician.

In Colorado this spring, one woman stressed how important it would be for politicians to raise wages or cut taxes for the working class.

In July, another focus group of Black non-voters in Ohio expressed the same thing – naming raising wages and more income as their priority.

One man’s comments indicate that some working class people who didn’t vote in 2024 may sour on economic actions by President Trump and Republicans in Congress, giving Democrats an opportunity. For example, he pointed to the recent budget bill that exponentially increased funding for ICE to express frustration that that money could be better used to help working Americans economically.

But to really seize the moment to regain support from these working class non-voters, Democrats have to understand that these Americans aren’t inclined to trust them to fix these problems – because they feel like the Democratic Party has been good at promising them economic improvements in their lives, but they aren’t seeing and feeling them.

DEMOCRATS NEED TO OVERCOME PERCEPTIONS OF INEFFECTIVENESS AND INAUTHENTICITY

Back in Colorado, one woman summed up something we’ve heard from both 2024 non-voters and those in other focus groups who backed Trump after previously supporting Democrats: Democrats need to actually deliver on the economic ideas they promise during campaign season.

And there is a direct connection between these Americans’ perception of effectiveness and authenticity. As another woman put it: “If I don't see a correlation between what you have done in your political career and what you're asking, I'm not going to believe you.”

One man in Colorado similarly argued that Democrats need to be authentic and stick to their beliefs, instead of chasing political winds.

Many of the working class people who didn’t vote in 2024 have the same issues with politics and politicians that we’ve heard in other focus groups so far. But their distaste for politicians and the system is often more intense, using words like “corrupt” to describe Democrats as well as Republicans, and feeling that no one is actually going to make a positive difference in their lives.

It was striking how many of these voters named higher wages as one thing politicians could deliver that may change their mind. Democrats would be wise to make a higher minimum wage and lower working class taxes central to their economic plans going forward – but they cannot turn a blind eye to the harsh reality that most working class voters may not trust they would get it done. They’ll have to communicate these economic ideas with focus and intensity, but also make sure to actually follow through on what they say.

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For months, in addition to dozens of focus groups across 20+ states, our long quantitative surveys, and other research tools, we have been conducting what are called “qual boards” – online discussion groups, like a Reddit-style message board, where the same working class participants receive prompts on certain issues and share their views.

This tool has been fascinating because it has allowed us to hear from the same core set of working class voters week after week to hear how their opinions are changing (or not), unfiltered in their own words.

This week, we want to offer a snapshot of six of those working class voters and how their views have shifted over time. The findings offer unique insights into how Democrats could appeal to working class voters ahead of the midterm elections.

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THE TL;DR

Some key takeaways:

• Working class voters remain very concerned about affordability and generally believe costs have not gone down this year and that President Trump has not focused enough on addressing the cost of living.

• In the spring, many of them were willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt on his tariff plan – but by summer, many expressed serious concerns that tariffs are hurting their lives by making things more expensive, despite what he’d promised during his campaign.

• These voters aren’t really souring on Trump’s handling of immigration, even as his national approval ratings sink on the issue. They largely support him cracking down on illegal immigration, even when they express some discomfort with how he is conducting deportations or defying court orders.

WHO ARE THE VOTERS?

The six working class voters whose evolving views we’re talking about today are:

• Jane: A 25-year-old white woman from Minnesota (voted Biden 2020 → Trump 2024)

• Jackie: A 47-year-old Black woman from Georgia (voted third party 2020 → Trump 2024)

• Alan: A 43-year-old white man from Maine (voted Trump in 2020 and 2024)

• Andy: A 37-year-old white man from North Carolina (voted third party 2020 → Trump 2024)

• Jennifer: A 31-year-old Hispanic woman from Florida (voted Biden 2020 → Trump 2024)

• Joan: A 49-year-old Hispanic woman from Texas (voted Trump in 2020 and 2024)

All of them supported Trump last year, and we have been asking them questions about his handling of various issues since he took office. We’ve also asked them about their views of Democrats, including what it would take for them to support a Democrat in the midterms. Interestingly, all still don’t know for sure whether they will support Republicans or Democrats in 2026, indicating that they’re still up for grabs.

We are anonymizing their names for confidentiality purposes.

INCREASING NEGATIVE SENTIMENT ON INFLATION, AFFORDABILITY, AND TARIFFS

All six of these voters expressed ongoing concerns about the cost of living and how expensive things were for them. In the spring, many of them gave Trump credit for trying to work on the economy and address issues he inherited like inflation. But by summer, many were singing a different tune.

JANE:

JACKIE:

JOAN:

These overall sentiments about how things aren’t getting more affordable tie directly to more in-depth negative views of Trump’s tariffs and the general belief that they are making things more expensive, not less.

JANE ON TARIFFS:

ANDY ON TARIFFS:

JENNIFER ON TARIFFS:

JOAN ON TARIFFS:

One voter, Jennifer, actually went from giving Trump a “B” letter grade for his job as president in April to an “F” in June. In the spring, she expressed hope and optimism for Trump’s plan and a willingness to be patient to see it yield fruit. But by summer, she had soured significantly.

JENNIFER:

These working class voters provide a useful snapshot into how the very segment of voters who powered Trump to victory in 2024 are feeling unsatisfied with his economic stewardship so far. All these voters agree that prices have either stayed high or are going up. Things haven’t gotten cheaper for them, and they specifically name Trump’s biggest signature economic policy as making things worse, not better. Their hope was that tariffs would at least create manufacturing jobs in the United States, but those aren’t materializing either.

The biggest concern we’ve seen in these discussion boards is that, over time, Trump’s tariffs have become less front-of-mind for these voters. As the tariffs drift in and out of voters’ minds, it will be important for Democrats to consistently message that his tariff actions are directly contributing to higher prices and a more unaffordable economy – and failing to deliver the manufacturing jobs he promised they would. This is especially important as Trump tries to roll out various supposed “trade deals” with messaging that claims the opposite.

Stick to what people are experiencing economically in their daily lives. If the costs of goods and services are high or going up because of trade uncertainty and tariffs, consistently remind voters that Trump’s tariffs are causing this reality and things aren’t getting better.

NO REAL SOURING ON TRUMP ON IMMIGRATION

Unlike on the economy and affordability, Trump generally continues to see support among these working class voters on the issue of immigration. Even when they express some discomfort with how he is conducting deportations or defying court orders, his handling of border security continues to drive his positive ratings among these voters. It’s worth noting that they are generally seeing more of the Trump side of the argument and are less familiar with the raids or arrests of people who are here legally or with papers. They primarily view Trump’s crackdown as keeping his promise to get the border and illegal immigration under control.

Jennifer, the 31-year-old Hispanic voter from Florida who supported Biden in 2020 then Trump in 2024 but has gone from giving Trump a “B” to an “F,” exemplifies much of what we’ve heard on immigration in these discussion boards as well as in our focus groups over time.

JENNIFER ON WHAT TRUMP HAS DONE THAT SHE LIKES:

Other voters struck similar chords:

Similarly, when asked in June what these voters feel most positively or optimistic about looking ahead to the rest of Trump’s term in office, they consistently point to immigration.

In May, three of these six voters also named immigration as their biggest concern about Democrats. Two said it directly tied to how they feel about their families’ safety, and one wrote: “The Democrats have allowed immigration and border security to become unmanageable. They have allocated taxpayer funds to financially support undocumented immigrants when those resources should be used to improve the lives of American citizens.”

To the degree there was vulnerability for Trump on immigration among these voters, it related to court rulings that he was violating the law and the perception that he was defying court orders. Some voters disagreed with the court rulings and saw Trump as taking reasonable decisive action on a big problem (as seen in the quotes above). But others viewed his disregard of court rulings as “appalling” and “kinda scary.”

Overall, despite his national approval ratings on immigration sinking, among this set of working class voters, we have not seen significant dissatisfaction with Trump’s actions. They generally believe he is acting in the best interest of America by deporting people here illegally, and they see him displaying strength. In contrast, they continue to view Democrats as weak on the issue, driving their negative ratings of the party.

WHAT THEY SAY DEMOCRATS COULD DO TO EARN THEIR VOTES IN 2026

Interestingly, all six of these voters remain up for grabs in 2026. When asked in June about the midterms, none of them expressed firm support for Republicans next year.

Almost all named costs and affordability as the most important issue for their votes.

Asked what the Democrats could do to make these working class voters consider voting for them, here’s what they said:

These unfiltered comments should give Democrats a roadmap of not only what issues to focus on but how to talk about them. Polls can show you macro trends and offer some insights, but these real-world statements about the working class’ lived experience and what may resonate with them should be a blueprint for how to connect with the very voters who have drifted away from Democrats and fueled Trump’s return to power.

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Today, we want to bring you inside the room.

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Recently, Jayne Charneski, who conducted this massive survey for The Working Class Project, held a briefing to go over key takeaways in how working class voters get information. Jayne has more than two decades of expertise in uncovering unique consumer insights across media, entertainment, consumer brands, and politics. This presentation illuminates some of the key challenges reaching working class voters — and some recommendations for how to do better.

We’ve done Substack Live chats with many of our team members, and we’re grateful for all of you who have tuned in or left comments that spur on our own thinking.

We hope this week, by hearing directly from another key member of our team on this critical topic, you’ll continue to tell us how you feel and what you think about the information we’re sharing. Leave us a comment, and thanks as always for subscribing.

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This week, we have more data from our 7,500+ person survey of media consumption habits among U.S. voters, including 2,000+ working class voters. Take a look at last week’s Substack post if you haven’t yet. We laid out all the details about how this survey was conducted, and we shared information about how and when to reach the working class. This week, we want to unpack more information about the specific platforms they use and the news sources they trust.

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This was a huge survey across our 21 target states, seeking to understand overall media consumption. By learning about the way working class voters use different platforms to consume information, we can identify stronger ways to reach them going forward.

THE TL;DR

• The media landscape and how working class voters consume information is changing.

• Compared to the overall population, working class voters are less likely to trust most news sources. A notable exception is YouTube, which working class voters are more likely to trust more than the overall population.

• Local TV news and newspapers are the only news sources with a net-positive trust rating among the working class. The next closest? NPR. All three major cable news networks are at least 30 points underwater on trust.

• But more working class voters are turning to YouTube, Facebook and TikTok to actually get their news. Two-thirds of working class voters use YouTube, and news is the top category of YouTube content they consume. Facebook remains a dominant platform for getting news, but TikTok gets higher usage among the working class than the overall population, especially among working class women.

WHAT NEWS SOURCES DO WORKING CLASS VOTERS TRUST?

Over the past few decades, trust in traditional news sources among Americans has dropped significantly. In our survey we focused on what we’ll call “the trust gap” – which is the difference between trusting and distrusting a source.

We found that, overall, working class voters have a larger negative trust gap with most news sources than the general population. A notable exception to this is YouTube, which is more distrusted among the general population than among working class voters.

The most trusted news source for working class voters is local news – either local TV news or local newspapers. Like with the general population, it is the only news source with a positive trust rating, though it is lower among working class voters than the general population.

There’s a notable gender gap when it comes to working class voters’ trust in news sources. Working class men are much more distrustful of traditional mainstream media news sources like broadcast and cable news networks than women.

Working class voters’ overall distrust of news sources tracks sentiment we’ve heard throughout the Working Class Project in focus groups and other research. These voters feel like few if any institutions speak to them or their interests, and they are generally skeptical and cynical about the status quo. It’s easy to see how that would translate to a news media that has calcified in old ways and often focuses on issues, controversies, and conflicts seen as irrelevant to working class voters’ daily lives.

SO WHAT PLATFORMS ARE WORKING CLASS VOTERS USING, AND HOW ARE THEY USING THEM?

YouTube is a significant platform for working class voters. Working class voters are more likely to use YouTube than the overall population – with 2 in 3 working class voters using it. Working class voters tend to watch more news-related content on YouTube than anything else, followed by music and how-to videos.

Something we have heard anecdotally in our focus groups is that working class voters may often hear news through mainstream sources but then go to YouTube to “verify” it with more information from sources they view as less biased or backed by establishment entities. This trend raises the stakes for the types of news-related content that spreads on YouTube and stresses a finding we first shared last week that social media algorithms may play a larger role in how working class voters get information versus other voter groups.

Half of working class voters are regularly using Facebook and YouTube for news consumption – eclipsing newspapers and podcasts.

One in ten working class voters say they use YouTube or TikTok most for their news consumption – but there’s a notable gender gap. Men are more likely to name YouTube, and women are more likely to name TikTok.

In our media diaries, where hundreds of working class voters volunteered to provide a more detailed snapshot of their daily media usage after finishing the overall survey, Facebook was named as the top social media platform for consuming news.

And working class voters aren’t simply passive consumers of content online. Two-thirds say they participate in forums or groups online where they can share viewpoints and ideas, including more than half who use Facebook groups. This indicates the growing value in investing in interactive group content, either on Facebook or in places like Reddit or Discord.

We will continue sharing findings from this landmark study as we unpack more research from the Working Class Project.

It’s clear that there are unique ways to reach working class voters compared to the overall population. Working class voters use platforms like YouTube and TikTok more than the general population. To reach them, Democrats need to recognize the importance and value of being present on these platforms. It’s true that algorithms may impact working class voters’ access to information more than the overall population. But that just puts a higher premium on Democrats flooding the zone in these platforms more going forward.

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This week, we are doing our first deep dive into the results of a massive, 7500+ person survey of media consumption habits among the U.S. electorate. This was a fascinating look at how registered voters across our 21 focus states are getting their information, the platforms and services they use, and who they trust for getting news or other information.

• The survey included more than 2,000 working class voters.

• At the end of the survey, respondents were invited to participate in a more in-depth 24-hour media usage diary, and nearly 500 working class voters took part.

• The diaries were filled out each hour, allowing both overall daily and more detailed time spent by part-of-day with different types of media.

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It’s important to note that this survey and diary sought to understand their overall media consumption – not just news. We wanted to learn more about the entertainment streaming services they use, the social media platforms they spend the most time on, and whether they listen to music or podcasts more, among other things.

This survey was intended to gain a deeper understanding of the information ecosystems voters live in, in order to gain insights into how to reach voters where they are and what platforms and venues are most important. The information we’ve gleaned from the media consumption analysis dovetails with what we’ve heard about media usage and trends in our focus groups so far. We’ll share more findings from this survey next week, specifically on the platforms working class voters are using and what news sources they trust most.

INITIAL TOPLINE TAKEAWAYS

• Working class voters are more likely to consume news via links on social media than the general population. Overall, they use YouTube and social media more than the general population (including more regular TikTok consumption), and only 1 in 20 ever read a print newspaper.

• Early morning is prime time for news consumption among working class voters. News readership spikes between 6:00 and 7:00 AM, and most working class voters (3 of 5) proactively read a news article at some point each day.

• Audio is a critical format for working class voters. From early morning to early evening, working class voters say they use audio throughout the work day, including streaming services like Spotify or Pandora as well as traditional AM/FM radio, more than the general population.

HOW DO WORKING CLASS VOTERS GET INFORMATION?

Like most other voters, working class voters consume a lot of TV or online video content. But when it comes to other platforms, working class voters’ habits stand out.

For example, working class voters are more likely than the general population to use social media, listen to audio, use YouTube, and play video games. They are less likely to read news.

This illustrates the complexity of reaching working class voters with news or political content – and makes clear that social media algorithms may play a larger role in how working class voters get information versus other voter groups.

There is some age variance in how working class voters get their news. Voters over 50 still overwhelmingly get news and information from TV. But the social media trend seen above is huge among voters under 50 – with 62% of those aged 18-49 saying they use social media and YouTube most for news.

Working class voters also don’t really consume news throughout the day or in the evening. Their peak news consumption is first thing in the morning, likely before they go to work. Later in the day, they are more likely to be exposed to audio (streaming and radio, likely while they work), as well as nighttime entertainment media consumption like TV, streaming, and video games.

For years, the political media ecosystem has centered on cable news, the nightly news, and primetime programming, but these findings show that approach is fundamentally out of touch with how working class voters consume media.

Sure, they may see aggregated content of traditional news on social media, YouTube, or in their morning news-reading. But overall, reaching these voters that have drifted away from the Democratic Party requires understanding that they are less likely to be exposed to traditional news content in their daily media consumption.

AUDIO REMAINS A KEY WAY TO REACH WORKING CLASS VOTERS

Working class voters are more likely to listen to audio throughout the work day than the overall population. (More than 4 in 5 working class voters told us they listen to audio at some point during the day.) This may seem obvious on its face – working class voters may be more likely to commute to work, have workplace settings where they have a radio on, or have opportunities where they can put their headphones in and listen to streaming music or audio while they work.

Interestingly, as you can see in the chart below, working class voters name traditional over-the-air AM/FM radio as a more frequent news source than newspapers, Instagram, TikTok, X, or podcasts.

NEXT UP: FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE, TIKTOK, AND OTHER PLATFORMS – PLUS: WHO WORKING CLASS VOTERS TRUST

We are going to continue to unpack this mammoth survey for you next week, when we’ll have a deeper dive on the social media platforms working class voters are using, how they’re using them, and what sources of news and information working class voters trust the most.

As we provide these findings, let us know if you have thoughts or want to know more by leaving a comment.

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