By suzanne downing 
An internal Democratic report has found that working-class voters who were once a cornerstone of the party’s base are now overwhelmingly seeing Democrats as “woke, weak and out of touch.”
The nine-month, 21-state study, first reported by Politico, paints a bleak picture for a party struggling to reconnect with middle-America following its devastating 2024 losses.
The project was commissioned by Democracy Matters, a nonprofit aligned with the powerful Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century. It was based on months of polling, 39 focus groups, and message testing conducted by three Democratic research firms: Impact Research, GBAO, and HIT Strategies. They surveyed more than 3,000 working-class voters across the political spectrum.
Researchers found that six in ten working-class voters hold a negative view of Democrats, and many “can’t name what Democrats stand for, other than being against Donald Trump.” Respondents described Republicans as the party of strength and patriotism, while Democrats were seen as disconnected elites who prioritize social issues over economic realities.
“The Democratic brand is suffering,” the report concluded, noting that voters see the party as “too focused on social issues and not nearly focused enough on the economic issues that impact everyone, every day.”
Former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, who co-chairs Democracy Matters and served as a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, acknowledged the painful findings: working-class voters, he said, “feel forgotten, left out, and that their issues are not prioritized by the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.”
Democracy Matters plans to brief congressional Democrats on the findings in the coming weeks and is already testing new messaging in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, where a six-figure ad buy highlights the economic struggles of working Americans.
The report echoes conclusions from other center-left post-mortems, which urge Democrats to move away from divisive social issues and rebuild trust on economic concerns such as wages, inflation, and housing. Yet even as the study calls for a “proactive policy agenda,” it offers few details on what that agenda should be.
Despite the grim outlook, the authors maintain that blue-collar voters remain “up for grabs.” They point to public frustration with President Trump’s handling of costs during his current term as evidence that Democrats can still compete — if they manage to refocus on everyday economic pain instead of ideological causes.
It’s a striking admission from inside the Democratic tent — and a rare moment of honesty about how far the party has drifted from the people it once claimed to represent.
SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
Hell, I could have told them all that for free.
Democrat baby boomers (1935-1960) are dying along with all their misguided beliefs
A lot of Americans have died through out the generations: baby boomers, GenX, and Millennials.
Its a new generation (GenX, Millennials, GenZ and GenAlpha) and they are questioning everything that’s been told to them and done by baby boomers
They needed 9 months to get this result?
The Demos are seen as woke, weak and out-of-touch because they ARE woke, weak and out-of-touch. The party and leaders would make progress if they were to dump all the “woke” stuff and talk about helping poor people. That message works pretty well, although it includes a couple of lies: That they actually care about the poor and that their actual goal is stealing tons of taxpayer money to finance the entire Leftist operation. The point is that it would work better than the current message. The Demos are so anti-America it defies description. Both parties would benefit from focusing on something other than Donald Trump.