New Midwest Focus Groups: Midterm Opportunities for Democrats Among Working Class
In Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas focus groups, working class voters expressed ongoing economic concerns and distaste for Republicans in Congress.
After taking a few weeks off in August, we’re back this week with another update from the largest research effort to understand why working class voters are trending away from Democrats – and what Democrats can do to win them in the future.
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.
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.
White woman in Iowa:
“At first, I thought [Trump] was trying to save us money, going through and cutting out all the crazy money people in the government were spending. You know, he was going through and calling them all out on it, and I thought he was all for us. But then when he put the tariffs on and we couldn’t afford groceries no more, I’m like, where’d all the money go that he just cut and saved us, you know? Why are we paying more for everything when he just cut all the money they were wasting?”
Another white woman in Iowa:
“So he can get a ballroom, I think.”
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.
White woman in Kansas:
“The cuts are substantial everywhere. So in Manhattan, they've got several – they had, I should say, several government jobs where they were doing a ton of research funding and bioengineering and things of that nature, and because of all the federal cuts, all of those positions have been eliminated. And now we've got giant buildings that were affiliated with the college that are completely shut down because those programs don't exist anymore.”
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.
White man in Nebraska:
“I think it's just an overall disastrous piece of legislation. I think the stuff of – the cutting, the Medicaid cuts, I think I think it was too big.”
White woman in Kansas:
“I don't understand why we target Medicaid and SNAP to relieve budgets when that's nothing compared to what we spend on other things. Look at the size of our budget versus those. They're minuscule, but they're killing it.”
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:
Message 1:
Republicans in Congress passed legislation that will make the biggest cut to Medicaid in history and kick sixteen million Americans off their health insurance. The law will also decimate funding for hospitals and force many to close, especially in rural America, and raise premiums and out-of-pocket costs for twenty-four million Americans -- all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy.
Message 2:
Republicans in Congress passed a tax plan to give the extremely wealthy and big corporations one of the largest tax cuts in history at the expense of the working class. The vast majority of the benefits of their plan go to the richest 1% -- all paid for by raising taxes on hard working Americans and making massive cuts to Medicaid and Medicare that will kick millions of Americans off their health insurance.
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.
White woman in Kansas:
“They talk about social issues because it's not just transgender that the Democrats have gone extreme on. So by pulling back on those and focusing on what we need as a country, it's important. Maybe we can find some unifying properties there, something to help get everybody on the same page. … It would be fun and nice for a change if [Democrats said that]. But, yeah, surprising.”
White man in Nebraska:
“I just feel like they're focusing so much on, you know, the social issue and aspect, and kind of pitting people against each other based on that rather than on other things. So I’d like to see us get away from all of that.”
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.
I applaud your work. It's very needed and important. When you mention things like running focus groups, it would be helpful to readers to know how you assembled the groups (e.g., random sample from voter list) and how many people were in each group. Thanks.
At the end of the day we all want the same things for our lives: to live freely and be able to provide for ourselves and our families. I agree with your assessments.