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working families party
Move Over Spanberger... Summer Lee to Deliver Working Families Response to Trump State of the Union
"I’m going to say what too many politicians won’t: The system is rigged, the obscenely wealthy are profiting from it, and working people deserve more than scraps."
Feb 20, 2026
As Democrats plan boycotts and counterprogramming to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address next week, progressives are readying their own response to resist not just the historically unpopular commander-in-chief, but the centrist faction of their own party.
For years, the State of the Union has served as a platform for rising stars in the opposition party. The Democrats are rolling out the newly minted Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a darling of the party establishment whose inaugural committee boasts an army of corporate backers—including Amazon and Capitol One, lobbying groups for the gambling industry and car dealerships, and multiple tobacco companies.
Seeking to push an alternative vision, the left-wing Working Families Party (WFP) has chosen Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), whom national director Maurice Mitchell described as "fearless, rooted in working-class communities, and unafraid to take on both MAGA extremism and corporate power."
Previous WFP speakers have included Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.).
"I’m going to elevate the voices of the people in my district and across the country who are angry, scared, and fed up with an administration that’s done nothing to help and a lot to hurt everyday people,” Lee said. “I’m going to say what too many politicians won’t: The system is rigged, the obscenely wealthy are profiting from it, and working people deserve more than scraps.
"Now more than ever," she continued, "we need a political home for people who are ready to fight back against Trump’s corruption and cruelty, and the corporate politics that made him possible.”
Her address comes at a pivotal moment for the Democratic Party's future. Despite the sinking popularity of Trump and soaring expectations of a blue wave in this November's midterms, polls show that Democratic voters are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with their party's leadership, believing it has failed to forcefully take on corporate power and pursue policy priorities like universal healthcare and increased taxes on the rich.
Contrary to Spanberger, a former congresswoman who consistently voted to hike military spending and called on former President Joe Biden to avoid pursuing an ambitious FDR-style social spending agenda, Lee has championed Medicare for All, a wealth tax on the richest Americans, and Green New Deal legislation while being one of Congress' fiercest critics of the US's unconditional military support for Israel.
"Summer Lee is the kind of leader this moment demands," Mitchell said. “At a time when voters are losing faith in the two-party status quo, the Working Families Party is building a disciplined, independent political force that can defeat Trump and actually deliver on jobs, wages, healthcare, and more.”
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The 'Primary Fetterman' Website Is Now Live
"People across Pennsylvania did not put time, money, and energy into supporting his campaign just to elect a Democrat who votes against our interests time and time again," said a campaigner for the Working Families Party.
Jan 16, 2026
The Pennsylvania Working Families Party rolled out an online "hub" on Friday to support a primary challenger to the state's US senator, John Fetterman.
The WFP, an independent party that often supports Democrats with a populist economic agenda, backed Fetterman's 2022 Senate bid when he ran in the general election as a champion of many progressive causes. But the group now says he "sold out working Pennsylvanians" after pivoting hard to the right on key issues.
It launched the campaign to oust him in November after he voted with Republicans to reopen the government without an extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, which is expected to spike health insurance premiums for over 22 million Americans this year.
“While Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is supporting Trump’s use of American tax dollars to ‘run’ Venezuela or buy Greenland, 500,000 Pennsylvanians are about to see their healthcare premiums rise because of the Republican budget bill he supported,” said Nick Gavio, mid-Atlantic communications director for the Working Families Party and a former Fetterman staffer. “People across Pennsylvania did not put time, money, and energy into supporting his campaign just to elect a Democrat who votes against our interests time and time again. We need new leadership.”
The website provides past Fetterman donors who feel betrayed by the senator with a form letter to "request a refund" of past contributions from the campaign. It also contains a "Sell-out Tracker," which seeks to "track every bad position" he has taken.
In addition to his vote to reopen the government, the group notes that Fetterman has voted to confirm 50% of Trump's Cabinet picks. He was the only Democrat who voted to confirm Attorney General Pam Bondi and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and one of the very few to vote in favor of Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
It also accuses him of "betraying vulnerable people" by supporting Republican legislation that eliminates due process for undocumented immigrants, cheering US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amid its mass deportation crusade, and giving full-throated support to Israel's genocidal war in Gaza and Trump's strikes on Iran.
The site also highlights Fetterman's tendency to neglect the basic duties of his job as a senator, which he has admitted he skips to spend more time with his family and because he finds them “overwhelmingly procedural.”
Fetterman has one of the worst attendance records in the Senate, having missed over 100 votes since April 2024 and skipped 44 out of 45 meetings for committees he was assigned to between January and May 2025.
He has also said he hosts very few town halls in order to avoid protesters, who have shown up to voice their discontent with his support for Israel, among other controversial positions.
As the site points out, while some other Democrats fought tooth and nail in a losing effort to stop Republicans from passing massive safety-net cuts in this summer's budget reconciliation package, Fetterman told Politico, "I just want to go home" and complained that he'd missed his family's trip to the beach.
So far, no prominent Pennsylvania Democrats have offered themselves up as potential primary challengers for Fetterman, who comes up for reelection in 2028.
Top names, including former Rep. Conor Lamb, who ran against Fetterman in the 2022 Democratic primary, and Philadelphia area Rep. Madeleine Dean have said they would not challenge Fetterman if he ran for another term.
Meanwhile, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who called Fetterman "Trump's favorite Democrat" last year, told NOTUS he'd be open to running against him.
The Pennsylvania Working Families Party said it is collecting donations that it will use to help "identify, recruit, and elect a real working class champion to replace Fetterman in the US Senate."
The group told NBC News that it has already amassed more than 425 people interested in either running against Fetterman themselves or volunteering their time or donating to help the effort to unseat him.
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Working Families Party Seeks Banner Year as Trump-Led GOP Appears Poised for ‘Landslide Electoral Defeat’
"I don't think there’s been a better and more right time for a third party to emerge in this country that speaks to the interest of everyday working people," said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party.
Dec 29, 2025
The Working Families Party is gearing up to have a banner year in the 2026 midterms at a time when political trends show the Republican Party led by President Donald Trump heading for a major loss.
The party, which is now active in 18 states, is preparing to "ramp up its involvement in primary elections, supporting candidates that emphasize working-class politics and seek to disrupt the political status quo," according to a Monday report in the Guardian.
The Working Families Party (WFP) had a number of victories in 2025, highlighted by its election of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City.
Maurice Mitchell, national director of the WFP, told the Guardian that he thinks now is the right time for a populist progressive insurgency given that both Democrats' and Republicans' brands are underwater with US voters.
"Less and less people are identifying as being a Democrat or Republican," he said. "I don't think there’s been a better and more right time for a third party to emerge in this country that speaks to the interest of everyday working people. I believe that our time has come."
Although the WFP has traditionally worked within the confines of Democratic Party primary politics, the party this year elected some candidates in the New Jersey General Assembly that lacked backing from state Democratic Party bigwigs.
"This is really the first time that there’s been Working Families candidates that ran outside of the Democratic Party structure, and so we’re building what that future looks like and what it means," Katie Brennan, a New Jersey assemblywoman-elect endorsed by the WFP who won without official Democratic Party backing, told the Guardian. “They've grown and have been making progress year in and year out, and this next year will be big for us. Now we’re in the statehouse, and what does that mean? I think it’ll continue to bring attention to the Working Families party."
One issue that the WFP hopes will propel its candidates to victory in 2026 is the nationwide backlash to artificial intelligence data centers.
In an announcement made earlier this month, the WFP said it is recruiting candidates to run against building AI data centers, which have been blamed for spiking utility bills and draining water resources, in their local communities.
“Billionaires are getting richer from data centers, while working people see their electricity and water bills go through the roof,” said Ravi Mangla, national press secretary for the WFP. "Fortunately, regular people are joining with their neighbors to push back against these big tech takeovers. We’re inviting local leaders who are fighting back to consider running for the seats where decisions about data centers are being made.”
Another reason the party may sense an opportunity is that the Trump-led GOP appears headed for brutal elections in 2026.
Polling expert G. Elliot Morris published an analysis on Monday showing that Trump's current net approval rating of -16 percentage points will likely translate into a "landslide electoral defeat" for Republicans next year.
Morris added that Trump's approval on the issue of inflation was "downright catastrophic," and noted that the president has been bleeding support even in states that voted for him by decisive margins last year.
"Trump’s approval rating is not just underwater because of Democratic resistance," he observed. "Lots of independents and Republicans disapprove of how he’s running the country, too. In fact, the decline from Trump’s vote margin in 2024 is steeper in redder parts of the country."
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