Democrats' 'working class' candidates are an elite con | Opinion

Amid their soul-searching moment, Democrats are infatuated with a new wave of “working class” and democratic socialist candidates. They hope the strategy can make inroads with working-class voters, a group with whom they’ve struggled historically.

It isn’t having the intended effect.

Elite left-wing strategists are using working-class messaging but they’re appealing to other elites, not necessarily to the actual working-class people who are the subject of the branding. Highly educated voters support these candidates as a form of virtue signaling, while actual working-class voters see through the mirage.

You might think Democratic elites are putting on this working-class performance to appeal to working-class voters. But those voters aren’t buying what Democrats are selling.

The ‘working class’ movement comes from the Democratic Party’s elite

Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City, which kicked off this new wave of progressive candidates, was championed by his campaign and its progressive allies as a win for the working class. 

The data tells another story. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo dominated among voters without an associate degree and took half of those with one, while Mamdani dominated among voters with bachelor’s or advanced degrees.

Even Mamdani himself struggles to define what “the working class” actually means. Under the vague definition he offered in a recent interview, New Yorkers making upwards of $1 million a year might qualify – lumping Manhattan lawyers in with those genuinely struggling to make ends meet. It’s not surprising Mamdani has trouble with the concept, given his self-described “privileged” upbringing as the son of an academic.

New York City isn’t representative of the country, though, so look elsewhere. Graham Platner, the handpicked Democratic working-class champion in Maine’s Senate race, showed the same pattern in a head-to-head poll against Republican Sen. Susan Collins: 66% of voters with a bachelor’s degree or higher backed Platner, while Collins took 58% of those without one.

In Michigan, progressive darling Abdul El-Sayed has a similar problem. A recent Detroit News poll found that just 44% of Michigan Democrats who didn’t attend college would vote for a democratic socialist, compared with more than 63% of those who did. 

El-Sayed doesn’t identify as a socialist, but he’s being elevated by the movement’s biggest names, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The same divide shows up in his favorability: 60% among Democrats who attended college, just 43% among those who didn’t.

He’s also struggling among Black voters. His opponent, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, has the support of 67% of Black voters, compared with 21% for El-Sayed. Even as progressives insist their policies fight on behalf of people of color, Black voters in Michigan don’t seem to believe it.

So if these candidates aren’t getting support from the working-class base Democrats claim to be targeting, where are they actually coming from?

These candidates are being elevated – or, in some cases, talked into running at all – by elite strategists looking to capitalize on the populist moment.

Take Platner. He was recruited by a pair of Ivy League-educated strategists, Daniel Moraff and Leanne Fan, who combed through “thousands and thousands of prospects” before settling on the Maine oyster farmer. When Platner dropped out of the U.S. Senate race amid sexual assault allegations, the Democratic Party didn’t abandon the working-class model – it just installed the next one.

His replacement, Troy Jackson, is a progressive cut from the same cloth, selected through an internal party process rather than a viral campaign. There’s nothing improper about that process. But it makes the point even more clearly: This “working class” candidate, too, was chosen by party elites, not by the working class itself.

The campaign agency behind Platner, Mamdani and many of these outsider candidates has mastered the art of marketing the working class to highly educated progressives. Fight Agency’s own strategists are much the same: highly credentialed types who cast themselves as working-class whisperers. 

At least four of the firm’s six listed employees – Rebecca Katz, Julian Mulvey, Eric Stern and Morris Katz – attended elite East Coast universities.

Progressives’ authenticity problem starts here

“Working-class messaging,” it turns out, is really just Democratic elites talking to other elites. Highly educated political strategists build the marketing, highly educated voters buy it. Real working-class people see through the act – but it’s convincing enough to work on the people it’s not even meant for.

Meanwhile, those same educated voters get to treat the working-class cosplay as a form of virtue signaling. They think they’re standing up for working-class people, or at least appearing to be – while mostly ignoring the issues the group actually cares about, the same ones Democrats keep struggling to address.

Self-described “extremely liberal” voters, the group most likely to back this new wave of socialist candidates, also have distinctly different priorities from the working people they claim to fight for. They overprioritize cultural issues ‒ like LGBTQ+ acceptance, climate change and the Israel-Gaza conflict ‒ while discounting concerns like crime and taxes. 

That’s the disparity that keeps extremely progressive types from connecting with the median voter.

Democrats think they can solve this problem by repackaging the same progressive policies into “working class” mouthpieces. But that assumption treats voters like idiots – and voters are more than capable of seeing through candidates who use theatrics to mask bad policy.

No amount of strategist talent can engineer working-class support out of thin air. If Democrats actually want these voters, they need to come to the table with real policy concessions – on law enforcement, immigration and other areas where they’ve lost ground – not just rhetorical window dressing.

Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Democrats’ ‘working class’ candidates are an elite con | Opinion

Reporting by Dace Potas, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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