Working Class Weekly: How Do Working Class Voters React to Different Democrats?
We wanted to understand what and who works with appealing to the working class – and came away with five initial lessons for Democrats.
We’re back this week with another update from the largest research effort to understand why working class voters are trending away from Democrats.
Over the past several weeks in our focus groups, we have shown working class voters videos of various Democrats on a range of topics or asked them about elected Democrats in their state. We know these voters have soured on the Democratic Party brand, but would they think differently about certain messengers or messages?
Listening to their reactions revealed that some things work, and others don’t. And we learned some key lessons Democrats would be wise to adopt as we try to regain standing among working people.
Here are a few:
LESSON 1: CONNECTION TO COMMUNITY
Democratic leaders sound most sincere – and resonate most with working class voters – when talking about where they are from, the specific issues their constituents care about, and the real-world struggles their constituents are facing every day. They resonate less when their messaging focuses on what these voters may “expect” from national politics or Washington, D.C.: partisan, nationalized messages disconnected from their daily lives.
For example:
Many voters we heard from liked Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez from Washington state.
In the CNN interview they watched, she spoke extensively about local issues in her community – like impacts in the logging industry, or how a local hospital is impacted by fentanyl addiction. She also called out Washington, D.C., and shared her own story of being connected to the working class. It worked: voters respected her connection to her community, and they liked her unpolished and relatable style.
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“She wanted to address our problems. Not the president’s problems, but our down-to-earth problems.”
“Hometown issues. She was talking about hometown issues.”
“She seemed caring and concerned about, like, the issues on hand. I like that.”
– Three Trump-supporting white women in Georgia
“She seems way more down to earth and like she knows she had hard facts that she could spit out. She wasn’t just talking around in a circle. I think we can relate more because she was just working, seemed like she did have a working class job, and now she's in office, and she can relate to us.” – White man in Virginia
“The way she kicked off, talking about how she's bringing her issues to them, or basically how she talked about how she was taking it to Washington instead of Washington taking it to her, like, I like that.” – Black man in Virginia
“She seemed real, like, just real genuine.”
“She seemed personable.”
“She seemed to be open to the good and the bad. She said she said it's okay to get yelled at. Like, so she's willing to hear all sides and then form an opinion instead of just being one-sided.”
– Three white women in Wisconsin
We also heard from a lot of voters who liked and respected certain Democrats in their own states because they perceived them as connected to the communities they represent and were more familiar with them locally, instead of through a national partisan lens.
Georgia working class voters expressed respect for Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
“He’s the pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church. So he’s well-known, well-versed within the city. He knows how to communicate… I think he's from, I forget, southern Georgia, Macon or something like that. And yeah, I think his mom was like a sharecropper or something like that. So that story resonates with people in the Deep South.” – Black man in Georgia on Warnock
“At least I know that some of them have fight for the local community. Ossoff was personally involved in trying to get the funding to get the electrical system on the main street to be upgraded because it was failing so badly.” – Asian American man in Georgia on Warnock and Ossoff
Michigan working class voters liked Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Senator Elissa Slotkin.
“She helps out on stuff. Like the home buyer’s loan, like what street’s getting fixed, stuff like that. You know? That type of stuff she helps out with.” – Black man in Michigan on Whitmer
“I think she tries to go on both sides, you know, crosses over occasionally.” – White man in Michigan on Slotkin
The common through line was that these Democrats were seen as less national and partisan, and more “real.” Keeping this down-to-earth, localized approach to messaging could help Democrats grow their appeal to working class voters.
LESSON 2: CENTER WORKING PEOPLE’S STRUGGLES
The voters we heard from liked when Democrats centered regular people and the struggles they are facing – particularly when the leaders they heard from were specific about the types of high costs people are dealing with. It was more important to these voters to hear Democrats caring about real people’s issues than railing about macro issues.
For example:
Many voters responded positively to this video of Senator Ruben Gallego.
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He both connected to the real struggles of working people today and, in the words of multiple voters we heard from, was “genuine” and “not so scripted.”
“I agree with what he said about how, like, seeing what our parents all accomplished and that it’s kinda hard to be motivated to keep going with stuff when it’s like, I’m never gonna achieve that.” – White woman in Wisconsin
“He just really was saying what a lot of people have been thinking and what people been going through. Like what what was said earlier: we need somebody to actually think about, you know, the average person and, like, how they gotta make it.” – Black man in Michigan
“He talks about work/life balance. Back in the day, my parents did have a work/life balance. They do a normal job, come home. Our work/life balance is out of whack.” – White man in Michigan
Acknowledging what is wrong with the status quo also resonated. We saw that in the case of both Gluesenkamp Perez and Gallego.
Clearly, it’s important for Democrats to speak up about what isn’t working, even when it confronts Democrats’ own shortcomings. This helps connect with working class voters, who largely distrust institutions or see the government as failing to address their needs, by mirroring what they already feel in their lives.
LESSON 3: RESPECT PEOPLE WHO DISAGREE
The voters we heard from believe politicians on both sides care more about fighting than delivering. They appreciate Democrats who can speak respectfully about people who don’t agree with them and express a willingness to listen to different perspectives.
For example:
In Georgia, one working class voter pointed to Ossoff and Senator John Fetterman.
He said unprompted that he’d heard of Ossoff working with a Republican senator on an issue, which he liked, and later also praised Fetterman’s belief that he should meet with President Trump on behalf of his constituents in Pennsylvania.
“Something [Ossoff] and Senator Kennedy from Louisiana, I believe, something bipartisan that they both agreed upon. I like that as far as I saw. [...] [Fetterman] is probably my favorite Democrat right now because he is making that effort. As far as like appointment meetings and stuff like that, he took all the points of view, even though he may not agree with all the stuff they were mentioning as far as what they had in mind as far as legislation. At least he was willing to show up to a lot of these events and actually sit down and listen to both sides.” – Black man in Georgia
In Michigan, another voter expressed respect for Whitmer for “handling business” in a non-partisan way.
“We got a governor like Gretchen – she gets into stuff. You know what I’m saying? Like, she doing stuff, and she goes to Washington and deals with Trump even though she don’t even really wanna deal with him, but she’s still handling business that she has to.” – Black man in Michigan
This doesn’t mean Democrats should abandon the fight against the damaging things Republicans and President Trump are doing to the country.
Rather, it underscores how Democrats need to express open-mindedness to ideas and outline a “big tent” vision for welcoming divergent views into the party, in service of delivering real results for working people.
LESSON 4: BE ‘FOR’ SOMETHING, NOT JUST ‘AGAINST’
Democrats who spoke to their own values and beliefs – the things they see as important for the country – were better received than those who focused more on attacking Republicans or President Trump.
These voters expect politicians to be partisan; when you feed into that, it sounds like more of the same. Speaking with conviction about what you are for resonates more and makes you stand out.
Of course leaders can and should speak up against policies or actions they disagree with or think are harmful. But when voters hear only the negative, they aren’t hearing Democrats’ values or ideas. And that’s a real challenge in a fractured media environment where negativity and conflict can suck up all the oxygen.
Right now, Democrats shouldn’t be afraid to talk about what they’re for. It won’t be enough to simply attack President Trump and be a “non-Republican.” To help rebuild the standing of the Democratic Party among working class voters, Democrats have to outline a vision for making their lives better.
LESSON 5: YOU CAN’T BE EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE
No one person draws universal praise. Democrats should know there is no single way to connect with working class voters.
We saw racial and partisan divides suggesting voters connected with certain Democrats (or didn’t connect with them) in different ways and for different reasons. Even Democrats that were liked by many working class voters were disliked by others. Some messages that certain people identified with fell flat with others.
But overall, the leaders who stood out to working class voters had a sense of conviction and sincerity in what they were saying that led to respect, even if some voters didn’t love them.
 | A guest post by
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I run a small grassroots messaging project in Alabama, not for a candidate, but for the community. I try to explain what’s happening in the world (or just in our small corner of it) in ways that feel real and human.
Everything in this post reinforces what I’ve learned while doing this project: people respond to values, to real-world consequences, and to someone willing to talk to them without talking down.
We focus on local politics and how national policies hit home here, especially in rural or working-class communities, and we try to give people the actual language to talk about those issues.
I don’t have a budget or a flashy brand. I just use an old Gmail account, a lot of Canva files, social media accounts on every platform I can think of, and a belief that people deserve to understand what’s being done in their name.
Appreciate the clarity here. It will help sharpen what I’m building.
Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is my rep and voted yes on the SAVE act. Did you tell them that? We are trying to get another dem up here.