A new report commissioned by a task force examines a problem many Democrats may have overlooked: the exodus of working-class voters from the party they once called home.
Republicans under former President Donald Trump are making headway in the working class, including the working class Black and Hispanic votersDemocrats, on the other hand, are gaining suburban moderates and highly educated professionals who previously voted Republican.
“Increasingly Republicans there is the party of working class people,” Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, he said during a recent podcast interview, while noting that CEOs and other wealthy professionals switched to the Democrats.
There are some voices on the left was lowered importance or even he denied the loss of working-class voters, however data does as you go clear and signs of realignment are everywhere.
“I’ve watched MAGA flags enter my community, a dark blue working-class suburb of New York City of ethnic whites and people of color,” said Maurice Mitchell, Working’s national director. The Party of Families, a labor group aiming to form a multi-racial working-class coalition. “Republicans are reaching into the working class, and it’s not just white working class people.”
The nonprofit arm of Working Families launched an extensive research project last year to try to get honest about the Democrats’ problems with working-class voters and find effective messages for the Democratic presidential campaign and others. The group shared findings exclusively with NBC News.
“When do we take the right wing and the Republican party seriously?” they say they want to be the party of the working class,” Mitchell said. “We wanted to start from a solid place that offered the most accurate picture of the Democrats’ interest in organizing working-class people, and without denying their sincerity.”
The effort began with an attempt to better understand the working class of the 21st century, creating a more nuanced definition of the demographic and breaking it down into seven value-based typologies. The categories were based on a battery of 40 questions asked of more than 5,000 participants in surveys conducted with HIT Strategies, a Democratic research firm.
Results, a 60 page research report and accompanying A 23-page political pamphletfirst shared this week in a virtual meeting with 160 representatives of left-leaning organizations and trade unions.
The report claims that working-class voters are often perceived as white men without college degrees, likely working in trades such as plumbing. In fact, it includes the working class men and women of all races working in business in the service sector, waiters, retailers, nurses and health workers, customer service representatives, hairdressers, IT techs, social workers, teachers, gambling dealers, dental hygienists, warehouse workers, etc.
The result is a new approach to analyzing the working class, which the report notes makes up about 63% of the electorate.
“The working class represents a large part of the electorate. However, ideological differences among the working class are almost never systematically explored,” the report states.
Educational attainment and income have traditionally been used to define demographics, but the report includes more detailed indicators, such as occupational category, so that a bartender or teacher with a college degree doesn’t automatically fall into the middle class. business owner without a college degreeas a car dealer or franchise owner does not automatically qualify as a working class voter.
The report divided people into seven subtypes, each roughly equal in size, along an ideological spectrum from “Next Gen Left” to “Core MAGA,” but the study was particularly interested in four groups that “crisscross” the middle. -stressed” with the best represented values on both sides.
These groups include Tuned Out Persuadables, Anti Waoke Traditionalists, Miscellaneous Disaffected Conservatives, and Safe Suburbs.
Cohorts may look different demographically, but more importantly, they rank according to their feelings about economic, social, and cultural issues. key for Reaching these cross-pressured sections of the working class is different, according to the report depending on on what messages resonate with each subgroup.
For example, the study found that populist economic messages about corporate takeovers and “big money” in politics are generally popular among the working class, while less effective messages include the Biden-Harris administration’s focus on climate and infrastructure or Harris’ work. the potential to make history as the first female president.
If nothing else, Mitchell hopes the study will prompt Democrats to take erosion with working-class voters seriously and move beyond one-size-fits-all stereotypes when thinking about how to talk to working-class voters.
“It’s not helpful to lump working-class people into a monolith,” Mitchell said.