Working Class Weekly: Working Class Voters Are Changing The Way They Talk About Government Programs

The One Big Beautiful Bill is changing the way working class voters talk about the safety net. That presents an opportunity for Democrats.

We’re back this week with new findings from the largest research effort in the Democratic Party to understand how working class voters are thinking about the 2026 midterms — and what Democrats need to do to earn their votes.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.