Trump Will Lose His Working-Class Support
The Democratic Party’s recent struggles with working-class voters are nothing new. The party previously saw its working class support wane in the 1970s and 1980s. (Ronald Reagan Presidential Library)
SMC Editorial Board Note: This piece is not an official caucus statement, but the opinion of the author and is republished from Democratic Left.
Last year’s presidential election marked a new high for the MAGA Right and a new low for Democrats when it came to winning working-class voters. In years past “the white working class” was the subject of the day, but in 2024 Democrats lost support from other groups, especially Hispanics. However, along with inheriting a section of the Democrats’ traditional working-class base, the Republicans have also inherited the same contradictions that have plagued the Democratic Party for years. Working-class Trump voters are coupled with a party elite embodied by the Federalist Society and Elon Musk, who’s endgame is cutting Medicaid, Social Security, and all other relics of the New Deal.
How will these tensions be resolved? One solution is offered by Compact magazine-type conservatives, a relatively new breed in American politics, who want the Republican Party to transform itself into a workers’ party that can simultaneously offer pro-worker policy and right-wing culture war. These people are deeply unserious. For an illustration of just how little of a plan they have for forcing the party of “right to work” to implement pro-worker reform, I recommend Compact founder Sohrab Ahmari’s pre-election interview on Behind the News where, when questioned on why supposedly pro-worker Republicans like JD Vance wouldn’t support the PRO Act, which strengthens American labor law, all he could say was “I tell them to support the PRO Act” in a frustrated tone.
“The most likely outcome is that an unchecked Republican Party elite will drive its unorganized working-class base out of their coalition entirely.”
This is because the Democratic and Republican parties are fundamentally different. Even now that both have substantial working-class voter bases, the Democratic working-class base is more organized. There is a bloc of politicians in the Democratic Party who find the bulk of their institutional support not in business, but in organized labor. Make no mistake, these officials are not necessarily left-wing champions, but any path to the Democratic Party reclaiming and becoming champions of their working-class base runs through revitalizing and expanding this layer of union-backed elected officials. There’s no such path available within the Republican Party, and one is unlikely to develop any time soon. Despite the shift of some union members towards voting Republican, organized labor’s leadership and activist layer remains solidly anti-Trump, with the exception of Teamster General President Sean O’Brien’s flirtations.
With no organized power base in the Republican Party that can fight for working-class interests, the party’s connection to their new working-class voters remains extremely tentative. The most likely outcome is that an unchecked Republican Party elite will drive its unorganized working-class base out of their coalition entirely. Indeed, this is not the first time that working-class voters have tried to make a new home in the Republican Party, only to quickly leave it.
The First Dealignment
The fragility of this new Republican coalition isn’t purely theoretical. While the dealignment of working-class voters away from the Democrats often gets discussed as a straight line where the Democratic Party has consistently been losing working-class voters, on the presidential level it’s been more of a zig-zag. Democratic presidential candidates struggled to win working-class votes from 1968-1988. Research by Jared Abbot indicates that Democrats lost the working-class vote in all of these elections with the exception of Jimmy Carter’s win in 1976. In 1980 Ronald Reagan even made inroads into the organized working class: he lost the union household vote by just 3% (compared to Trump’s loss by 8% in 2016 and 10% in 2024) and received an endorsement from several big unions, including the Teamsters (compared to the Teamsters’ loud non-endorsement of both Trump and Harris in 2024).
“This failure to solidify the far-right through concrete organizing means that the future likely offers more of the same.”
This Republican coalition could not hold, and in 1992 Clinton won big with the working class, spelling the end of this first period of dealignment in U.S. politics. Why was Clinton able to win back the working class in such large numbers? We can get the answer to that question from Clinton’s own unofficial campaign slogan: it’s the economy, stupid. Working-class voters are the most exposed to the economic ills of the day, whether that be the recession of the early 1990s or the inflation of the early 2020s, and can whiplash against incumbent parties who fail to stop or blunt these ills. This created an opening for Clinton to reunite the working-class vote in its traditional party, although once in power he eschewed working-class interests and further dismantled the labor movement and welfare state, ultimately dooming this realignment to be temporary. It’s hard to imagine today’s Republican Party doing anything to protect their working-class base in an economic downturn (one that many Americans believe MAGA tariffs may cause) meaning similar openings for Democrats may exist in the near future.
In some cases the effect of economic downturns on the working-class vote can be blunted by the presence of social institutions in workers’ lives with connections to one of the parties. Plenty of research has shown how unions have served to stabilize some workers into the Democratic Party, while churches have anchored others to the Republicans. The Trump era has not brought any boost to the diminishing number of churchgoers in the country, nor have any new right-wing social institutions of a comparable size been organized. This failure to solidify the far-right through concrete organizing means that the future likely offers more of the same. More of the same here does not mean, in a straightforward way, an increasingly Republican working class that’s hostile to the Democratic brand. It means an increasingly unmoored working class that struggles to find a permanent home in either party.
Reflecting on the Bern
The only way out of this depressing state, long term, is to rebuild social institutions that connect the working class and left-wing parties. In particular, a revitalized labor movement with more members, a bigger presence in its members’ lives, and a strong political vision could beat dealignment, and, unlike in the ‘90s, do so in a way that is sustainable and actually furthers working-class interests. It’s vital that DSA keep doing the kind of nitty-gritty labor organizing that it’s matured into in the last few years so we can reach this long-term goal. But in addition to this narrow but in-depth work we should carefully take stock of recent left-wing political projects that have been able to reach a much wider base in the working class.
“Bernie could build a working-class base because working people were paying attention to him.”
In this regard, there is no better a north star for realignment than Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns. In a relatively short time, Sanders managed to build a “Berniecrat” base that was far less professional and more working-class than the membership of organizations like DSA. Unlike with Clinton, form met function in the Sanders campaigns as he built this working-class base on pro-union, left-wing values. That meant that, rather than being a momentary blip of success with working-class voters, the Sanders campaigns led to a flurry of new organizing, with DSA exploding in size during both the 2016 and 2020 campaigns through its association with Sanders. And while DSA was unable to capture the less professional elements of Bernie’s base among our membership (as of last counting, 80% of our 25+ year old members have college degrees, although many are teachers, social workers, and other relatively low-wage professionals), the presence of an activated left-wing faction of the working class certainly assisted our organizing, contributing to the modest uptick in labor organizing in the years since 2016.
While it’s a point of contention as to why Bernie was able to reach a working-class voter base while DSA’s membership remains largely professional, I’d wager on a simple explanation. Bernie could build a working-class base because working people were paying attention to him. With so few social institutions to anchor people in their local community, Americans are often paying more attention to big national news like the presidential election than to the kind of local campaigns that DSA often organizes. This is how populists like Sanders (or Trump) have built substantial working-class bases without the mediation of strong social institutions.
Having a democratic socialist running in the biggest election in the country was vital in 2016 and 2020, and it’ll likely be vital to our movement’s growth and our attempt to realign workers with the Left going forward. Beware, though, that not all presidential campaigns are created equal. Socialists run in every presidential election, but are usually relegated to obscure third party ballot lines, and rarely prompt the kind of organization that Bernie’s campaigns did. People pay attention to the presidential election, but they don’t pay attention to third party candidates in these elections. We need candidates following in Bernie’s footsteps by running in the Democratic primary.
“But if we banish ourselves from the Democratic Party’s ballot line and enter the marginal, invisible world of third party politics, we set ourselves up for failure.”
Unfortunately, just as DSA was not powerful enough to create the 2016 or 2020 Bernie campaigns on our own, we are not yet a large enough organization to wish a democratic socialist presidential campaign on the Democratic Party ballot line into existence in 2028. However, recognizing that this is an important ambition can direct our organizing in a few key ways. For one, we should consider which figures in American political life might choose to launch such a campaign (there aren’t many) and continue to try to build close, collaborative relationships with them. This will ensure that they know we’ll have their back, and will throw what capacity we have behind them should they run. It will also ensure that, should they choose to run, DSA will be in a position to organize around their campaign effectively. One nightmare scenario is that a democratic socialist will run for president in 2028 and that DSA will not endorse or meaningfully support them, kneecapping both their campaign and DSA’s ability to benefit from their campaign in the way we benefited from endorsing Bernie.
Additionally, recognizing the importance of the Democratic presidential primaries means rejecting the idea that the Democratic Party’s poor performance with working-class voters in 2024 means that DSA should break away from using their ballot line. As the Democratic Party’s approval ratings hit new lows, a clean break might seem appealing to stop the Democrats’ “brand” problem from tainting DSA, but this is short sighted. Just as how the Reagan era of the ‘80s left an opening for Clintonite Democrats to ride into power with working-class support in the ‘90s, when Trump’s coalition falls apart there will be new openings for Democrats to start reconnecting with the working class. Unlike in the ‘90s, the Left of today might be organized enough to take advantage of this moment. But if we banish ourselves from the Democratic Party’s ballot line and enter the marginal, invisible world of third party politics, we set ourselves up for failure. Trump has nothing to offer workers and sooner or later they’ll abandon his movement just like they abandoned Harris. We need to be there to recruit some of them on their way out the door.