How to Stop Progressives From Losing the Working Class
Republican victories in Virginia and New Jersey last week are an ominous reminder of what is at stake for Democrats. Glenn Youngkin’s victory over Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia gubernatorial race is a clear indication that Joe Biden’s victory, particularly in such hotly contested purple states, was in large part a reflection of the fact that Donald Trump
underperformed compared to more generic, establishment Republicans. Perhaps the most staggering difference was among non-college educated voters—who Youngkin won
by a significant margin.
No doubt, making sense of these results in the coming weeks will hark back to the
battle between moderates and progressives that followed the 2020 election. Moderates, especially those from “purple” districts like Pennsylvania Representative Connor Lamb, who narrowly held on to his seat, blamed progressive members for filling the Democratic Party agenda with “unpopular” and “unrealistic” issues like Medicare for All and defunding the police. Progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fired back that members of the Progressive Caucus had no trouble winning their elections and blamed moderate defeats on ineffective digital marketing strategies and other tactical errors.
But the reality is that both sides are talking past each other. By lumping together issues like Medicare for All (a relatively popular proposal) with defunding the police (a wildly unpopular one) into one “progressive agenda,” moderates are failing to recognize the very different levels of support enjoyed by different planks in the progressive agenda—particularly among the working class.
Incoming New York mayor Eric Adams, for example, won both a primary and a general election campaign on an
anti-crime platform in arguably the most progressive city in the country. On the other hand, the left-wing rebuttal is significantly weakened by the fact that members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on the whole, represent very safe Democratic districts. This point is driven home by the
election results for Democratic Socialists of America–endorsed races in the recent election. But there simply aren’t enough safe Democratic districts to build a viable progressive congressional coalition.
On top of that, only five members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus represent competitive working-class districts, including majority-white and nonwhite districts. This is indicative of a broader problem across the party: Democrats have been slowly hemorrhaging working-class voters, the backbone of the party since the New Deal. The shift is most pronounced among non-college-educated voters, who are leaving the Democrats for the Republican Party.
Biden gained a little ground with non-college-educated whites in 2020, but Trump and Republicans still won that group by 26 points nationally.
These trends are most acute among white voters but in recent years have become highly visible among working-class voters of color, too. In 2020, for example, Trump and down-ballot Republicans both
made gains among non-college-educated Black and Latino voters. Similarly, in last week’s election in Virginia, Latino voters’
support for Democratic candidates was lower than expected.
Changes in national partisan trends—and particularly the erosion of the working-class base of the Democratic Party—are critical questions that must be reckoned with if the Democratic Party is to stand a fighting chance in 2022, 2024 and beyond. At their core, these debates reflect key presumptions about the kinds of policies and platforms that will appeal to new tranches of voters that Democrats so desperately need to attract.
But how can Democrats attract new working-class voters, particularly those in competitive districts? Do working-class voters actually support the kind of egalitarian economic agenda championed by candidates like Bernie Sanders? The answers to these questions are critical ones not only for Democrats electoral futures but also for building a strong progressive coalition in Congress.
