Working-class voters think that Democrats are "woke, weak, and out of touch."
Who knew?
.@Politico: Working-class voters see Democrats as “woke, weak and out-of-touch” and six in 10 have a negative view of the party, concluded a frank internal assessment of the hole the party finds itself in. https://t.co/mR8rlRuQQx
— Sean Southard (@SeanSouthardGOP) November 2, 2025
As Scott Adams would say, you could have saved a lot of money and just asked me.
Political parties are fond of doing postmortems after losses, and in principle, it makes a lot of sense. If you want to figure out why something unexpected happened, or get more information about the variables that led to a result that doesn't seem fully understood, gathering data makes a lot of sense.
In reality, a lot of these studies are done as a way for consultants to fundraise and spend a lot of money in the off years. They are not useless, but more often than not, they aren't worth the money. Especially since a decent chunk of them are designed to arrive at conclusions friendly to the people funding them.
Still, I don't have much of a quibble with the bottom line of this particular study. Of course, that's because I agree with much of it.
Working-class voters see Democrats as “woke, weak and out-of-touch” and six in 10 have a negative view of the party, concluded a frank internal assessment of the hole the party finds itself in.
The nine-month, 21-state research project is the latest in a wave of post-mortems and data dives aimed at solving the Democratic Party’s electoral challenges after their sweeping losses in 2024. It was funded by Democracy Matters, a nonprofit aligned with flagship Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, and backed by months of polling, dozens of focus groups and message testing.
American Bridge’s project focused exclusively on working-class voters, shedding light on a once-core constituency for Democrats that’s drifted away from the party over the last decade. And the initial feedback is grim: Working-class voters don’t see Democrats as strong or patriotic, while Republicans represent safety and strength for them. These voters “can’t name what Democrats stand for, other than being against [Donald] Trump,” according to the report.
The Democratic brand “is suffering,” as working-class voters see the party as “too focused on social issues and not nearly focused enough on the economic issues that impact every one, every day,” the report said.
"Testing messaging," by the way, is just another way of saying that they are looking for ways to spin things. To find what Frank Luntz calls "words that work." The thing is, voters get more sophisticated every day, so the words that work today may not tomorrow or the next day.
Democrats’ must focus on affordability, the report emphasized, though its messaging suggestions clash with the strategy of progressives, differing on who to blame for economic strain. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) drew enormous crowds when they barnstormed the country this spring on their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, attacking billionaires and “the 1 percent.”
But in the report, their surveys found “a candidate focused on taking on big corporations and the wealthy” received 43 percent, while a “candidate focused on fixing the economy so those who work hard can get ahead” earned 52 percent.
“Not one person in all of our focus groups mentioned the word ‘oligarchy,’” Landrieu said.
These respondents aspire to wealth, Landrieu added, but “absolutely felt like wealthy people who were using the tax system to not pay their fair share was a very serious problem.”
And there's the rub: all this study showed was that working-class voters are right to see the priorities of the Democratic Party at odds with their concerns. Democrats don't just LOOK woke, weak, and out of touch. The ARE woke, weak, and out of touch. All the energy in the Democratic Party is on the left, and the trend is still moving in that direction.
No postmortem will stop that trend. If it were possible, the Democrats would be moving toward Fetterman, not Mamdani.
Still, you will see commercials crafted to use the focus group "words that work," but they will be so at odds with the overwhelming messages coming out of the most prominent Democrats that they will not save the Democrats, except in the closest of races.
But when Democrats are attracted to Mamdani, AOC, and Graham Platner, there is little hope that they are going to switch gears because a consultant tells them to.
Platner has been running as a working-class Democrat, but scratch the surface and you get an Antifa socialist who wears Nazi tattoos.
Better to look at where Chuck Schumer is going, and Hakeem Jeffries, a bit more reluctantly. Both were compelled to endorse Zohran Mamdani because the alternative was the political guillotine. Democrats are still all-in on transgender issues, illegal immigration and are obsessed with the White House ballroom.
Good luck selling that agenda to working class voters.
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