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populism
Amid Wave of Working-Class Victories, Poll Shows Platner With Clear Lead Over Collins
"Voters are responding to candidates willing to directly challenge concentrated power, rising costs, political corruption, and the growing disconnect between working people and political establishments in both parties,” said the head of Our Revolution.
May 20, 2026
After a strong night for progressive candidates in Democratic primaries across the country on Tuesday, things are continuing to look up for Maine's presumptive Democratic Senate nominee, Graham Platner, as he seeks to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
A poll out Wednesday from the independent firm Pan Atlantic Research showed the 41-year-old former Marine leading the incumbent senator by a clear margin of 48%-41% in November's general election among likely voters.
It's a three-point jump in Platner's favor since the last Pan Atlantic poll in March, where he led with 44% of the vote to Collins' 40%. According to the New York Times' poll aggregator, it's the seventh straight poll to show Platner with a clear lead.
Wednesday's poll showed Platner having striking success with women and independent voters, where he leads Collins by margins of 19 points and 13 points, respectively.
But crucially, Platner is also tied with Collins among non-college-educated voters, who broke hard for President Donald Trump in 2024, even as former Vice President Kamala Harris ultimately took the three out of the state's four electoral college votes up for grabs in the election.
Platner's continued momentum—on a platform built around Medicare for All, tax hikes for billionaires, and an end to reckless and costly overseas military engagements—comes alongside a series of election results that Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of the left-wing advocacy group Our Revolution, said demonstrated that populist economic messaging from working-class candidates can galvanize voters.
“The throughline across many of these races is that voters are responding to candidates willing to directly challenge concentrated power, rising costs, political corruption, and the growing disconnect between working people and political establishments in both parties,” Geevarghese said.
"What’s notable is that this energy is manifesting in very different political terrains—from deep blue urban districts to tougher working-class and red-to-blue areas," he continued. "Whether it’s Bob Brooks speaking to economic frustration in Pennsylvania, Chris Rabb unapologetically confronting establishment politics and endless war, or Ruwa Romman building a grassroots organizing operation in Georgia, these campaigns reflect a growing appetite for candidates rooted in economic populism, movement politics, and multiracial working-class organizing.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly suggested Harris took all of Maine's four electoral votes in 2024. By winning more votes in the state's 2nd Congressional District, Trump secured one electoral vote while Harris took three by winning the 1st District and having more votes in the state overall.
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GOP Spends Big Against Working-Class Progressive Leading Democratic Primary in PA
"I think they're afraid of a working-class person," said firefighters union president Bob Brooks after a Republican PAC dumped $1 million to blunt his momentum in the Democratic Primary for Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District.
May 19, 2026
Republicans are pulling out all the stops to prevent a working-class populist from snatching the Democratic nomination in the heart of Pennsylvania coal country on Tuesday and earning the right to challenge one of the GOP's most vulnerable incumbents, Congressman Ryan Mackenzie.
In the waning days of the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district, a deceptively named Republican-aligned political action committee (PAC) called Lead Left—created just weeks before—dumped $1 million into the race to run ads against Bob Brooks, a retired firefighter from Bethlehem and president of the largest firefighters' union in Pennsylvania.
Even in the GOP wave of 2024, the freshman congressman barely edged out the former Democratic Rep. Susan Wild, by about 4,000 votes. With Republicans' approval ratings collapsing nationwide, his seat in the Lehigh Valley has become one of the juiciest targets for Democrats in November.
“I think they’re afraid of a working-class person,” Brooks said of Republicans’ decision to spend against him in the primary during a speech in Allentown on Sunday. “I think they’ve been voting against us for years, and they’re gonna continue to do that. They don’t want to see a working-class guy run against their boy in the general."
"I've worked every job this side of the Mississippi—most of them two, three jobs at a time," said Brooks, who worked as a bartender, dishwasher, snowplow driver, landscaper, and many other jobs before the age of 30, according to his campaign website. "Ryan Mackenzie's never had one. He's gone from Harvard to the state House, straight to Washington. It's about time he fills out an application."
Brooks—who advocates a progressive platform that includes Medicare for All, a repeal of Citizens United, an increased minimum wage, and policies to strengthen unions—has pulled into a comfortable lead in the four-way primary, with help from a broad coalition of backers that spans the ideological field of the Democratic Party.
He's attracted the expected progressive support, including from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has described him as someone with "the guts to stand up to corporate greed and a corrupt political system," and the Working Families Party, which praised him as an exemplar of "real working-class leadership," noting that he “spent time in dozens of jobs before becoming a firefighter and running into burning buildings.”
But Pennsylvania's centrist Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro was also among his earliest big-name supporters, even though his opponents boasted deeper institutional ties to the state's Democratic Party. At a rally for Brooks on Sunday, Shapiro described him as someone who "understands what real people are dealing with, isn’t afraid of anybody, and... can bring people together to get stuff done.”
His roster of prominent supporters runs deep and wide. He has the backing of a slew of local unions and local politicians. He's secured both left-wing stalwarts like Justice Democrats and the Congressional Progressive Caucus and conservative Democrats in the Blue Dog PAC. And he's being cheered by big-name Democrats ranging from Sen. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.) to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.).
Brooks' broad appeal stands out at a time when Democrats have an opportunity to win back Rust Belt voters disillusioned as Trumpism decays into something without the barest figment of populist appeal.
Where Democrats would have once pushed for a reactionary Blue Dog or highly educated party lifer to run in a district like PA-07, Dustin Guastella, a research associate at the Center for Working Class Politics and the director of operations for Teamsters Local 623, described Brooks' surge toward the nomination over a trio of more credentialed insiders as a sign of a welcome shift in strategy.
"Working-class voters simply prefer blue-collar candidates. They like electricians and schoolteachers more than attorneys and executives. That’s because working-class candidates better speak to the economic challenges most workers face, and they do so in plain language," Guastella wrote in The Guardian on Tuesday.
"Brooks hasn’t had the privilege of a college education. He’s a veteran firefighter and now the head of the statewide firefighters union. His grandfather was a Teamster truck driver. He was raised by a single mother who worked as a bartender. He’s a varsity baseball coach at Nazareth High School," he said.
But Guastella noted that Brooks' appeal goes far beyond aesthetics. "How can progressives win back the working class? For those concerned with this question, populism has proven the obvious answer," he argued. He noted the success of other candidates in traditionally red constituencies like Nebraska, where independent Dan Osborn, a former union leader, looks poised to unseat Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts on the back of a similar worker-focused platform.
"He’s got what it takes to flip this district," Guastella said of Brooks. "Which is why the Republican Party is already spending big money to influence the election. That’s frustrating, but it’s also a sign that Brooks is a real threat."
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'We Are Coming for Power for Working People': Ocasio-Cortez Talks US Politics in Germany
"You are being screwed, and that story is not a cultural one but a class one."
Feb 16, 2026
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday fleshed out her vision for progressive politics in the US during a town hall-style event at
Technical University Berlin in Germany.
While discussing the domestic political situation in the US, Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) argued that enormous disparities in wealth inequality were leaving voters open to appeals from far-right movements that scapegoat immigrants and minorities for problems being caused by unchecked corporate power.
"When you have economic stagnation for the working class, especially in an environment where GDP is growing, that is the stuff of populist movements," said Ocasio-Cortez. "The choice is what direction those populist movements can go... One direction is, 'We are going to blame this on the vulnerable, on immigrants, on people of different gender identities."
The Rosetta Stone for AOC’s foreign policy right here: “...economic elites are taking the lion's share of growth for themselves and leaving crumbs for the working class...this is an injustice, you are being screwed, and that story is not a cultural one but a class one” pic.twitter.com/gK7kyVbONb
— Van Jackson (@RealVanJackson) February 15, 2026
The New York Democrat then argued that right-wing populism "is all done as a distraction from the truth, which is that economic elites have taken the lion's share of growth for themselves" while "leaving crumbs for the working class."
"The alternative is a populist movement that tells the truth," she continued. "That says, 'This is an injustice, you are being screwed over, and that story is not a cultural one, but a class one.'"
Elsewhere in the talk, Ocasio-Cortez downplayed speculation about potentially running for higher office in 2028, instead outlining her goals for reshaping the political environment.
"My ambition has always been about conditions," she said. "I remain ambitious, but my ambitions are in changing our political environment. That's why, when I was first elected, my ambition was to change the Democratic Party, and to make it more economically populist and responsive to working-class Americans... Frankly, I think the ambitions of a progressive movement go so far beyond an elected office. We are coming for power for working people."
Ocasio-Cortez also gave a shoutout to the resistance to federal immigration enforcement operations as an example of building community solidarity in the face of an external threat.
"Every one of us can be sand in the gears of an injustice," she said. "I think about how all the people in Minneapolis refused to let [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers use the bathroom in their establishments. I mean, it’s a small thing, but it matters! It matters... We create a culture of protection of one another, a culture of solidarity with one another, and it's rebellious."
AOC: “There are more of us than them. Every one of us can be sand in the gears of injustice. All the people in Minneapolis refused to let ICE officers use the bathroom in their establishments. It’s a small thing, but it matters! We create a culture of protection of one another” pic.twitter.com/3y9IpRiS8m
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) February 15, 2026
Ocasio-Cortez's remarks on Sunday came after she participated in a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference on Friday where she argued that "a working-class-centered politics" was the key to defeat "the scourges of authoritarianism, which provide political siren calls to allure people into finding scapegoats to blame for rising economic inequality, both domestically and globally."
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'Working-Class-Centered Politics' Is Key to Defeating 'Scourge of Authoritarianism': AOC in Munich
"It is of the utmost urgency that we get our economic houses in order and deliver material gains for the working class."
Feb 13, 2026
US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday made a pitch for a "working-class-centered politics" as the key to defeating the kind of authoritarian populism embodied by President Donald Trump.
Speaking at a panel at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said that decades of government failures such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the 2003 Iraq War had opened the door for demagogues such as Trump among working-class voters.
The only way to defeat this, she said, is to reorient progressive politics around social class.
"We have to have a working-class-centered politics if we are going to succeed," she said, "and also if we are going to stave off the scourge of authoritarianism, which provide political siren calls to allure people into finding scapegoats to blame for rising economic inequality, both domestically and globally."
AOC: We have to have a working class centered politics, if we are going to succeed and also if we are going to stave off the scourges of authoritarianism which provide political siren calls to allure people into finding scapegoats to blame for rising economic inequality pic.twitter.com/USqgTk3brd
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 13, 2026
Elsewhere during the panel, Ocasio-Cortez elaborated on the way economic inequality fuels the demand for authoritarian leaders.
"We're seeing, in economy across economy around the world, including in the United States," she said, "that extreme levels of income inequality lead to social instability and drives in a sense in authoritarianism, right-wing populism and very dangerous domestic internal politics. And that is a direct outcome of, not just income inequality, but the failure of democracies over decades to deliver, the failure to deliver higher wages, the failure to rein in corporations."
AOC: We’re seeing economies around the world — including in the United States — where extreme levels of income inequality lead to social instability and, in a sense, drive authoritarianism…
That is a direct outcome not just of income inequality, but of the failure of… pic.twitter.com/0EHsbyqdFK
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 13, 2026
The New York Democrat argued that the situation had grown so dire that many corporate CEOs now had more power and influence than democratically elected leaders.
"When massive corporations begin to consume the public sector and gobble up public spending, they start to call the shots," she said. "And we’re starting to see this with some members of the billionaire class throwing their weight around in domestic and global politics."
Given this situation, Ocasio-Cortez added, "it is of the utmost urgency that we get our economic houses in order and deliver material gains for the working class," or else "we will fall into a more isolated world governed by authoritarians who also do not deliver for working people."
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Billionaire Wealth Surge, Welfare Retrenchment, and the Politics of Populist Anger
If billionaires continue to shape political systems while states become hostage to corporate and neoliberal agendas, we should expect more authoritarianism.
Feb 04, 2026
The latest Oxfam report delivers a stark warning about the direction of the global political economy. In 2025 alone, billionaire wealth surged by $2.5 trillion, pushing total billionaire wealth to $18.3 trillion, the highest level ever recorded. Wealth at the top is now growing three times faster than in previous years, even as poverty reduction stalls and hunger rises. Oxfam calls this not just economic inequality but dangerous political inequality, a world in which the ultra rich increasingly shape laws, media systems, and public policy to serve themselves.
This builds on Oxfam’s earlier finding that the richest 1% own more wealth than the bottom 95% of humanity. The organization describes the moment as one where the shadow of global oligarchy hangs over multilateral institutions, tax cooperation, debt relief efforts, and global public goods. Billionaires are not only accumulating wealth, they are accumulating influence, with an outsize presence in politics, corporate ownership, and media control.
At the same time, another long-term trend has unfolded. Over the last four decades, beginning with Reaganomics in the United States and Thatcherism in the United Kingdom, neoliberal reforms normalized austerity, privatization, and shrinking public welfare. The welfare state was reframed as a burden rather than a foundation of stability and dignity.
This shift was not only economic but moral: Market efficiency displaced social solidarity, and welfare came to be viewed as dependency rather than dignity.
The irony is that once in power, many populist leaders deepen the very insecurity that propelled them to office.
Today the richest 1% have more wealth than the bottom 95% of the world’s population put together, while the welfare state has steadily eroded. What has followed has worsened inequality; fueled resentment; broken trust in state institutions; weakened the social contract; and led to feelings of exclusion, helplessness, and marginalization. The result has been a rise in populist anger and right-wing governments characterized by anti-immigrant sentiment and hostility to multilateralism.
This trajectory has not only reshaped economies, but politics itself. So who is to blame? Is it the right-wing populists who are now eroding democratic norms, or the neoliberal austerity that hollowed out welfare systems long before them. In reality, the link between the two is the helplessness and anger felt by ordinary citizens who feel invisible in a world marked by inequality and social injustice. As Oxfam International executive director Amitabh Behar notes, being economically poor creates hunger, being politically poor creates anger. It is this economic and political poverty that fuels today’s rage, and much of it traces back to economic disenfranchisement and austerity.
A recent report to the United Nations by Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Olivier De Schutter reinforces this picture. He warns that welfare retrenchment, harsher conditions for benefits, digital surveillance of claimants, and stigmatizing systems have increased insecurity and humiliation rather than reducing poverty. These punitive approaches erode trust in public institutions and create fertile ground for far-right movements that claim to speak for those left behind.
The irony is that once in power, many populist leaders deepen the very insecurity that propelled them to office.
The United States offers a clear illustration of this paradox. Donald Trump returned to power on a message of defending forgotten citizens and challenging elites. Yet recent policy directions have narrowed the social safety net. Cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, stricter work requirements for food assistance, and the expiration of enhanced healthcare subsidies have increased costs and reduced access for low-income households. Earlier efforts to weaken the Affordable Care Act and promote short-term insurance plans with thinner coverage followed a similar logic. While framed as efficiency or fiscal responsibility, these measures shift burdens downward even as tax and regulatory environments remain favorable to corporations and wealthy interests.
What the world needs now is a serious reset where the common citizen feels seen and their rights and needs are valued. The state must play its role as an active dispenser of social protection, justice, and welfare. As the UN Special Rapporteur De Schutter notes, social protection and welfare should not be seen as a cost to be reduced, but as part of a strategy that has been proven to deliver security and well-being for all
If billionaires continue to shape political systems while states become hostage to corporate and neoliberal agendas, we should expect more authoritarianism. The outcome will be deeper division, fragmentation, and conflict. The world cannot afford that trajectory.
What is missing in today’s political economy is empathy, a basic regard for human welfare that has been crowded out by indifference and market logic. Without restoring that moral foundation, neither democracy nor social stability can endure. Reclaiming democracy therefore requires not only restoring welfare states, but curbing the political power of extreme wealth through taxation, regulation, and democratic accountability.
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Ending GOP Authoritarianism Will Require Overcoming the Democratic Leadership
The Democratic establishment shuns the progressive populism that’s vital to effectively counter bogus right-wing populism. And so, the fight to defeat the fascistic GOP and the fight to overcome the power of corporate Democrats are largely the same fight.
Jan 20, 2026
The past year has completely discredited any claim that choosing between the Democratic and Republican parties would be merely a matter of “pick your poison” with the same end result. In countless terrible ways, the last 12 months have shown that Donald Trump’s party is bent on methodically inflicting vast cruelty and injustice while aiming to crush what’s left of democracy and the rule of law.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party’s leadership persists with the kind of elitist political approach that helped Trump win in 2024. Hidebound and unimaginative, Senate leader Chuck Schumer and House leader Hakeem Jeffries have been incapable of inspiring the people whose high-turnout votes will be essential to ending Republican control of Congress and the White House.
The Democratic establishment shuns the progressive populism that’s vital to effectively counter bogus right-wing populism. And so, the fight to defeat the fascistic GOP and the fight to overcome the power of corporate Democrats are largely the same fight.
Advocates for progressive change will remain on the defensive as long as the Trump party is in power. With the entire future at stake, social movements on the left should have a focus on organizing to oust Republicans from control of Congress in this year’s midterm elections.
Counting on denunciations of Trump to win elections is a very bad strategy. It didn’t work in 2016, it barely worked in 2020, and it failed miserably in 2024.
The point isn’t that Democrats deserve to win – it’s that people certainly don’t deserve to live under Republican rule, and ending it is the first electoral step toward a federal government that serves the broad public instead of powerfully destructive and violent elites. Like it or not, in almost every case the only candidates in a position to defeat Republicans for the House and Senate this year will have a “D” after their name.
Democratic Party leaders have dodged coming to terms with reasons why their party lost the White House in 2024, preferring to make a protracted show of scratching their chins and puzzling over the steep falloff of support from working-class voters of all colors. The Democratic National Committee’s refusal to release its autopsy report, assessing what went wrong in the election, underscores the party’s aversion to serious introspection.
Cogent answers are readily available, but top Democrats like Schumer and Jeffries refuse to heed them. If the party wants to regain and expand support from working-class voters, it must fight for programs that they clearly want.
Extensive polling shows strong public support for major progressive reforms, such as raising taxes on big corporations and the wealthy, lifting the Social Security tax cap, boosting the federal minimum wage, and greatly expanding Medicare to include dental, vision, and hearing coverage.
The multifaceted tyranny that Trump and his toady lieutenants want to impose is both abrupt and gradual. Relying on “big lie” techniques, they strive to turn this month’s shocks into next month’s old hat.
Yet counting on denunciations of Trump to win elections is a very bad strategy. It didn’t work in 2016, it barely worked in 2020, and it failed miserably in 2024.
If the party wants to regain and expand support from working-class voters, it must fight for programs that they clearly want.
Democrats on ballots this fall will need to be offering plausible relief to voters in economic distress. But it’s hard for Democratic leaders to come across as aligned with the working class when evidence is profuse that they aren’t.
In essence, Schumer and Jeffries—and the majority of Democratic officeholders who keep those two in the party’s top positions—represent the Biden-era status quo that was unpopular enough to return Trump to the White House. A key reason is a reality that Sen. Bernie Sanders described soon after Trump’s 2016 win: “Certainly there are some people in the Democratic Party who want to maintain the status quo. They would rather go down with the Titanic so long as they have first-class seats.”
Democratic Party leaders should be removed from seats of party power or bypassed as relics of bygone eras. Their ongoing refusals to distance from corporate power, rich elites, and militarism have alienated much of the party’s base.
As I wrote in my free new book The Blue Road to Trump Hell, “The Democratic Party enabled Donald Trump to become president twice because of repetition compulsions that still plague the top echelons of the party.” To eject Republicans from power – and to advance a strong progressive agenda – true leadership must come from grassroots mobilization.
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Warren Warns Democrats Against Letting Billionaires Dictate Their Economic Agenda
"If Democrats want to win elections, they need to read the room—or I should say, they need to read literally any room anywhere in America that isn’t filled with big donors."
Jan 12, 2026
Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday warned the Democratic Party against reshaping its economic agenda in the hopes of winning over billionaire donors.
In a speech delivered before the National Press Club in Washington, DC, Warren (D-Mass.) argued that watering down a progressive economic agenda to appeal to big-money donors made little sense at a time when the richest in America are taking ever greater shares of wealth and US families are struggling to keep their heads above water.
Warren pointed to many US elites maintaining friendly relationships with the late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, even after he pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor, as evidence of a broken system.
"Over the past generation, the wealthy have avoided accountability time and again," she argued. "Regular Americans must play by every rule or face real consequences. You don’t need to read every news article about Jeffrey Epstein and his good buddies like [former Treasury Secretary] Larry Summers and [President] Donald Trump to understand how consistently rich and powerful insiders protect each other, regardless of politics and regardless of how obscene the situation has become."
Warren acknowledged that Democrats needed to broaden their appeal to more voters given that they lost the popular vote to Trump for the first time in 2024, but she argued that targeting wealthy donors would not accomplish that goal.
"There are two visions for what a big tent means," she said. "One vision says that we should shape our agenda and temper our rhetoric to flatter any fabulously rich person looking for a political party that will entrench their own economic interests. The other vision says we must acknowledge the economic failures of the current rigged system, aggressively challenge the status quo, and chart a clear path for big, structural change."
Warren also criticized the "abundance" agenda that has been promoted by New York Times columnist Ezra Klein over the last several months as a way to fix Democrats' electoral woes.
The senator began her critique by touting what she said were good points that Klein and Abundance co-author Derek Thompson make about government needing to work more simply and efficiently to deliver benefits.
However, Warren said that what their analysis of government failures has often missed is that there are powerful interests that are working to keep these inefficiencies from being addressed.
"For years, I've fought for a simple, free government tax filing system so no one has to pay a couple of hundred bucks just to file their taxes," she explained. "Every step of the way, the giant tax prep companies have thrown up roadblocks to stop it. And when the [Internal Revenue Service] finally built a free—and wildly popular—filing option for American taxpayers, the tax prep companies swooped in to kill it the minute Donald Trump took office."
Warren also said that many major Democratic donors, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, have been latching onto "abundance" in order to drive the conversation in the party away from US wealth inequality.
"We are now in a new election cycle, and according to Axios, Reid Hoffman is sending everyone he knows a copy of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book on Abundance and backing pro-abundance candidates," Warren explained. "On his podcast, Hoffman has used the framework to argue against regulations that slow down data center construction. That’s right—when families are already getting crushed by rising costs and a data center boom means even higher utility costs... Hoffman wants Democratic candidates to stand with the billionaires for higher costs."
The senator then said that "if Democrats want to win elections, they need to read the room—or I should say, they need to read literally any room anywhere in America that isn’t filled with big donors."
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U-Turn by Establishment as Corporate Dem Guru Carville Pushes 'Platform of Pure Economic Rage'
"It really is starting to feel like economic populists have won the debate."
Nov 24, 2025
James Carville, a one-time political strategist for former President Bill Clinton who has long sparred with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, turned some heads on Monday when he appeared to embrace a more populist economic vision.
Writing in the New York Times, Carville argued that the American people "are pissed" by the state of the US economy, and that Democrats must now "run on the most populist economic platform since the Great Depression."
"It is time for Democrats to embrace a sweeping, aggressive, unvarnished, unapologetic, and altogether unmistakable platform of pure economic rage," Carville added. "This is our only way out of the abyss."
While Carville then took a shot at the "era of performative woke politics from 2020 to 2024," which he said "left a lasting stain on our brand, particularly with rural voters and male voters," he said that Republicans' total failure to address the affordability crisis has given Democrats a second chance to win them back with bold economic populism.
"In the richest country in the history of our planet, we should not fear raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour, which had a 74% approval rating in 2023," he said. "We should not fear an America with free public college tuition, which 63% of US adults favored in a 2021 poll. When 62% of Americans say their electricity or gas bills have increased in the past year and 80% feel powerless to control their utility costs, we should not fear the idea of expanding rural broadband as a public utility. Or when 70% of Americans say raising children is too expensive, we should not fear making universal childcare a public good."
Taken together, the longtime centrist Democratic strategist declared that "the era of half-baked political policy is over."
Progressives who have long advocated for more economic populism cautiously welcomed Carville's new approach, although they expressed skepticism that the Democratic Party was really ready to go in this direction.
"The Democratic Party has to decide if they will let folks build that table," wrote former Democratic Ohio state Sen. Nina Turned on X. "For too long, the party has done everything to hurt the populist movement."
David Sirota, founder of The Lever and one-time senior adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign, noted with amusement that Carville's recommendations to Democrats had changed dramatically over the last few months.
Specifically, Sirota pointed to a editorial Carville wrote for the Times back in February where he recommended that the party "roll over and play dead," while waiting for President Donald Trump and the GOP to inevitably implode from self-inflicted errors.
"He's gone from demanding Dems play dead to demanding Dems be Bernie Sanders," Sirota observed. "A good reminder that thumb-in-the-wind politicos with no principles will change their tune when others do the hard work of shifting the political environment."
Gun violence prevention activist David Hogg, on the other hand, took the Carville op-ed as a hopeful sign that "times are changing."
Climate advocate and attorney Aaron Regunberg also saw signs that Carville's op-ed marked a turning point in Democratic Party conventional wisdom.
"It really is starting to feel like economic populists have won the debate," he argued. "Our haters have become our waiters—time for us to all build a table of success for the Democratic Party."
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Economic Populism Is the Key to Rust Belt Votes
A new study found that progressive economic populism can win back Rust Belt voters—inside the Democratic Party where necessary, outside it where possible.
Oct 08, 2025
Democrats know they have a problem with working-class voters but don’t agree on the cause. Commentators chalk Kamala Harris’ 2024 loss to high prices, an unusually short campaign cycle, or voter resentment against the possibility of having an African American woman as president. But the Democratic Party’s working-class woes have much deeper roots.
Many voters in key battleground states feel burned by decades of Democrats’ unrealized promises to improve the lives of working people, failure to reign in obscene economic inequality, and support for economically disastrous policies—from NAFTA to the entrance of China to the World Trade Organization—that led to the loss of countless jobs and futures in their states.
A new study from the Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP), with the Labor Institute and Rutgers University, uses a 3,000-person YouGov survey in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to test whether economic populism—tapping into resentment and insecurity from decades of corporate excess and bipartisan neglect—can win back voters who’ve turned away from the Democratic Party.
Let’s start with the good news. Economic populism is popular among Rust Belt voters—particularly when it explicitly calls out corporate greed and mass layoffs. Strong economic populism—as opposed to “populist-lite” messaging that acknowledges there are few bad apples in the otherwise healthy barrel of large corporations—was particularly popular among many of the groups Democrats have struggled to reach: working-class voters, voters without a four-year college degree, voters whose incomes are less than $50k per year, and Latino voters.
If Democrats want to win, they’ll need to put delivering good jobs and holding corporations accountable at the center of everything they do and say.
But if economic populism is so popular, why did even the most stalwart Rust Belt economic populists—like former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown—struggle in 2024? The survey reveals that the Democratic Party label often drags the message underwater. When the very same populist message was delivered by a candidate labeled “Democrat” rather than “Independent,” support dropped by an average of 8.4 points—a gap that balloons into double digits in Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. In Pennsylvania, by contrast, there’s no meaningful penalty. In races decided by a few points, that brand discount can prove decisive.
To identify the best path forward for economic populists, the survey next assessed Rust Belt voters’ top economic policy priorities. Across ideological lines, respondents prioritized policies framed around fairness, anti-corruption, and economic security. Proposals like capping prescription drug prices, stopping corporate price gouging, and reigning in political corruption were among the top priorities regardless of partisanship or class. Policies to raise taxes on the wealthy and expand access to good jobs also performed well.
A new proposal barring companies that take taxpayer money from laying off workers also polled surprisingly well—and held up under Republican attacks. The policy was popular even though respondents had never heard of it and it challenges corporations’ right to chase short-term profit at communities’ expense, putting it well outside the acceptable range of mainstream Democratic economic proposals. The policy directly channels Rust Belt communities’ resentment over decades of mass layoffs into a commonsense rule—“if you take from the public, you can’t harm the public”—while signaling a tougher, jobs-first stance than Democrats typically embrace.
Costly or abstract proposals—such as $1,000 monthly payments to all Americans or a trillion-dollar industrial policy for clean energy—as well as traditional conservative ideas like corporate tax cuts and deregulation ranked poorly overall, drawing only pockets of partisan support.
The survey results suggest two simultaneous paths to success for economic populists. In competitive districts where running as an Independent would do little beyond ensure Republican victory, a party hoping to win back the working class should rebuild the Democratic brand by running disciplined and bold economic populist campaigns around policies to reduce costs, create good jobs, and hold elites accountable. Candidates who show independence from donor-class priorities and build a track record as champions of working-class priorities can still make the “D” stand for something again.
In other contexts, however, economic populists should test independent campaigns—following the model of Nebraska’s 2024 Independent Senate candidate Dan Osborne. This should be strategic, targeting deep-red districts and states where running outside the Democratic Party won’t simply hand the race to Republicans, but there are many places where it could be viable. The study also finds majority support for creating an Independent Workers Political Association to back such efforts, with enthusiasm highest among non-college voters, young people, voters of color, and the economically insecure, and with meaningful support from Independents and Republicans as well.
In short, progressive economic populism can win back Rust Belt voters—inside the Democratic Party where necessary, outside it where possible. The most effective strategy is not mysterious: Speak plainly about who profits from layoffs and price gouging and focus obsessively on policies that put workers first. If Democrats want to win, they’ll need to put delivering good jobs and holding corporations accountable at the center of everything they do and say. The path to victory in 2026 and beyond lies in giving voters a reason to believe that Democrats (and independent economic populists) have their backs while Republicans continue to cut workers’ benefits and do nothing to bring back jobs and dignity to long-suffering Rust Belt communities.
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Voters Again Shown to Prefer Populism Over Neoliberal 'Abundance' Agenda in New Research
"Majorities of Democrats and independents and two in five Republicans believe the outsized power of billionaires and corporations in our government is a bigger problem than red tape and bureaucracy."
Sep 04, 2025
A new strategy memo written by a progressive think tank and a pair of high-profile Democratic Party operatives makes the latest case that a populist economic message will help the party more than a message centered around the so-called "abundance" agenda, Politico reported on Thursday.
The memo—which was written by Democratic pollster Geoff Garin and Democratic strategist Brian Fallon, in collaboration with Groundwork Collaborative—uses polling and focus group data to argue that a sharp populist message is more effective at winning back working-class voters than a message focused on cutting regulations in order to build more housing and infrastructure.
"While there are elements of the Abundance agenda that have appeal, and the choice on which messages to deliver is not zero-sum, a populist economic approach better solves for Democrats' challenges with working-class voters," the memo states. "If candidates are asking which focus deserves topmost billing in Democrats' campaign messaging, the answer is clear: Though some voters believe excessive bureaucracy can be a problem, it ranks far behind other concerns and tackling it does not strike voters as a direct response to the problem of affordability."
The memo went on to argue that "majorities of Democrats and independents and two in five Republicans believe the outsized power of billionaires and corporations in our government is a bigger problem than red tape and bureaucracy."
In a head-to-head messaging test, voters told researchers that government giving preference to large corporations and billionaires was a bigger problem than government bureaucracy causing inefficiencies by a nearly two-to-one ratio. By roughly the same ratio, the researchers found, voters preferred cracking down on price-gouging corporations to cutting bureaucratic red tape.
The researchers did credit abundance-centric messaging with generating "some fresh ideas that challenge the status quo," but warned that "there are significant questions about whether a focus on it in political messaging adequately meets the moment Democrats face today.
The memo is set to be presented to Democrats on Capitol Hill next week, and Politico noted that it has the support of Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), who represents a competitive congressional district and who in the past has embraced populist messaging.
The "abundance" movement got its name after a book released earlier this year by journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, who both argued that Democratic-led state governments have put up too many bureaucratic roadblocks to achieve ambitious goals such as affordable housing and high-speed rail.
Some critics of the book, however, argue that it fails to address issues such as corporate power and wealth inequality as the real roadblocks to progressive change.
As Common Dreams reported last week, a recent analysis by Revolving Door Project and Open Markets Institute detailed how the abundance movement "erroneously" claims that environmental reviews hinder clean energy progress while having little to say about "the real causes of delay," including interference by fossil fuel-backed politicians and profit-driven privately-owned utilities.
The memo's release comes just as an "Abundance" conference is set to kick off in Washington, DC on Thursday that will include Klein and Thompson as featured speakers, as well as Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox.
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