Will Democrats Fail to See the Working Class Again?

House Democrats are about to announce their “You Deserve Better” agenda that will include a range of initiatives they promise to pass if they win control of the House in November. Understandably, Democratic leaders are trying to regain support and trust with the diverse Democratic base and the key working-class swing voters and union households that moved to support Donald Trump in 2024.

According to surveys conducted by Democracy Corps, the most important policies in that agenda should be saving the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid, and re-enacting the expanded monthly Child Tax Credit. But why is that not obvious for other researchers?

(I should disclose that my wife is Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, one of the principal sponsors of the expanded monthly Child Tax Credit.)

More from Stanley B. Greenberg

I have written over many decades in the Prospect that Democrats will only regain their majority when they realize that white, Black, Hispanic, and Asian working-class voters demand an economic populist and values agenda. Fortunately, for our latest polling I persuaded Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers and the Voter Participation Center founded by Page Gardner to add 500 oversamples of Black, Hispanic, and Asian voters, as well as large samples of young voters and white working-class women and men under 50 years of age—the genuine swing voters who are open to Democrats.

When we launched, Carlos Odio of Equis Labs oversaw the Hispanic surveys, and Terrance Woodbury of HIT Strategies the Black surveys. Woodbury criticized my Prospect piece after the 2022 midterms when I wrote that Black voters were more concerned with crime than police abuse, and not much interested in Joe Biden’s racial justice agenda. So now I oversee the surveys and run the reports myself.

Democracy Corps conducted a post-election national survey in November 2024 with 2,357 actual voters, including 528 Black, 503 Hispanic, and 314 Asian voters. The survey is linked here and deals with many reasons for the disastrous election that re-elected Trump. The election was close, and we asked respondents to choose which were the most important reasons to vote for Kamala Harris. The campaign spoke about democracy and risk of fascism, but across the base groups, the top reasons were saving the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid, followed by “her help with the cost of living, like the monthly Child Tax Credit, the cost of housing and small business.”

What was the response among groups that received the expanded monthly Child Tax Credit? Among Gen Z voters, 45 percent chose “help with the cost of living” as the top reason to support Harris in the election, followed by the 39 percent who wanted to save the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. Among the much larger group of millennials, 35 percent chose help with cost of living, just four points below saving our democracy and the battle for federal retirement programs.

Among Black voters, 50 percent chose Harris’s commitment to save the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid, but the expanded monthly Child Tax Credit was tied for second place, with 38 percent choosing it.

Among white working-class men under 50, help with the cost of living was in third place, with 39 percent choosing it. It was tied for second place with white working-class women under 50; about a third chose it. And remember, these working-class swing voters are 1 in 5 voters.

In the post-election survey, we also asked voters for their feelings about “the higher monthly child tax credit that gave tax relief to poor, working and middle-class families with children.” It was extremely popular. About 80 percent of Black voters, white working-class men under 50, Hispanics, and Asians gave warm ratings to the measure. And critically, 64 percent of Black voters, 57 percent of Hispanic women, 55 percent of white working-class men under 50, 53 percent of white union households, and 52 percent of Gen Z gave it “very warm” ratings.

It is striking that the biggest fans of the much larger monthly Child Tax Credit are Black voters and white working-class men under 50. Democrats have an important opportunity with both.

The expanded monthly Child Tax Credit had an enormous impact on society, despite its too-brief implementation. It cut child poverty in half and hunger by a quarter. It provided many in the working class help with the cost of child care and other expenses. This post-election survey for Democracy Corps “sees” the working class, and sees the political impact.

What is happening with other surveys that House Democratic leaders are looking at? The stakes are too important not to ask. Do the surveys under consideration have large samples of Black, Hispanic, and the youngest Gen Z voters? Are they breaking out white working-class voters under 50 years of age?

Are they explicitly referencing the much larger and monthly Child Tax Credit that was clearly noticed, according to this survey?

Are they allowing the current extended Child Tax Credit in the Big Beautiful Bill to color perceptions of this form of tax relief?

Democrats are right to try to address the huge trust issues that led so many to vote for Trump. They should not fail to see the working class agan.