Do Democrats Have a Working Class Problem?

An ongoing debate is taking place among Democrats as to whether Kamala Harris and the party suffered election defeats because they failed to appeal to key working class voters.

Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020, said Harris lost so heavily to Donald Trump in 2024 because the party had “abandoned” working class voters. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she “respectfully” disagreed with Sanders’ assessment during a Thursday briefing with reporters.

The vice president’s 2024 campaign was accused of not distancing itself enough from President Joe Biden, whose term in office has been marred by low approval ratings, decades-high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis. Fingers are now being pointed at the party’s apparent failure to address the economic concerns of those hit hardest by rising inflation.

Newsweek has contacted Harris’ team and the Democratic National Committee for comment via email.

David B. Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Akron in Ohio, said that Harris faced “very difficult headwind” competing for votes following the high inflation and rising interest rates, despite “economic successes from a macro level.”

“If working and middle class voters perceive that the economy is in bad shape and feel the pinch in their pocketbook, it doesn’t matter what the reality is from 30,000 feet,” Cohen told Newsweek.

“Perception is reality in politics and elections and Americans are not happy with the state of the economy or the direction of the country. In that situation, the incumbent party always gets punished.”

According to a CNN exit poll, Harris fell 16 points among voters of color with no degree compared to Biden in 2020. Trump managed to maintain his strong advantage with white males and females with no college degrees in both the 2020 and 2024 races. Trump also beat Harris among Latino males by 10 points (54 percent to 44 percent), the first time this demographic had broken for the Republican. Biden held a 23-point lead among Latino men in 2020.

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders said. “While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”

Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison pushed back on claims the party had left working class voters.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Harrison said Sanders’ comments were “straight-up BS,” adding that Biden was the “most pro-worker president of my lifetime—he saved union pensions, created millions of good-paying jobs, and even marched in a picket line.”

Harrison added Harris’ economic plans would have “fundamentally transformed the quality of life and closed the racial wealth gap for working people across this country.”

“From the child tax credits to $25,000 for a down payment on a house to Medicare covering the cost of senior health care in their homes. There are a lot of postelection takes, and this one ain’t a good one,” he wrote.

New York Rep. Ritchie Torres said the loss of support among Latinos this year in particular is “nothing short of catastrophic for the party.”

Speaking to The New York Times, Torres said he is now worried that Democrats are pandering to “a college-educated far-left that is in danger of causing us to fall out of touch with working class voters.”

Leah Wright Rigueur, an associate professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, said the Democrats failed to listen to Sanders several years ago when he warned that the party was at risk of losing working class voters by campaigning on issues that weren’t as relevant to them.

“One of the things that Bernie Sanders has been saying since at least 2014 is that the Democratic Party, if it wants to keep these coalitions, needs to talk about bread and butter issues,” Rigueur told CNN.

“A lot of people attacked him for that, saying, ‘Well, are you saying that cultural politics don’t matter?’ That’s not what he was saying. He was saying we need to focus on these things.”

In a series of posts on X, Tom Bonier, a senior adviser to the Democratic data firm TargetSmart, said Harris’ hopes for significant female support while campaigning heavily on abortion rights does not appear to have worked in the vice president’s favor.

“The simplest explanation for Trump’s victory was that Americans believe the economy is in a bad place and they wanted someone who both acknowledged that and represented a clear change of course,” Bonier wrote.

“The post Dobbs [v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization] Dem over-performance was nonexistent. Or at least swamped by other factors favoring Trump,” Bonier added.

“Clearly, Trump was not viewed as a threat to abortion rights by enough voters, which is mind-boggling.”