The Democratic Party, already at historic lows in terms of approval with American voters, are steadily losing a key voting bloc in droves. Many working-class Americans who once reliably backed Democrats are voicing doubts about ever returning to the party, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
In interviews with the Times, several working-class voters said they wrestled with their choice to support former President Joe Biden in 2020, reflecting deep-seated frustrations that have lingered since his win. The reporting comes as Democrats ramp up efforts to win back disaffected voters ahead of the upcoming midterm contests and the 2028 presidential race.
“I think I’m done with the Democrats,” Desmond Smith, a black man who voted for Biden in 2020, told the NYT. Smith told the outlet that he voted for President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Asked how the Democratic Party could win his vote back, Smith told the NYT that Democrats need to “fight for Americans instead of fighting for everybody else.”
“It seemed like they [Democrats] were more concerned with [diversity, equity and inclusion] DEI and LGBTQ issues and really just things that didn’t pertain to me or concern me at all,” Kendall Wood, a truck driver from Virginia, told the Times. Wood told the outlet as well that he voted for Trump in 2024 after backing Biden in 2020. “They weren’t concerned with, really, kitchen-table issues,” he added.
“Maybe talk about real-world problems,” Maya Garcia, a restaurant server from California, told the NYT. Garcia stated that she voted for Biden in the 2020 presidential election but did not participate in the 2024 presidential election.
Garcia said that Democrats talk “a lot about us emotionally, but what are we going to do financially?” She added, “I understand that you want, you know, equal rights and things like that. But I feel like we need to talk more about the economics.”
Kyle Bielski of Arizona told the New York Times that he resonated with former President Donald Trump’s “America First” message during the 2024 election cycle. However, he admitted to the outlet that he feels the president has fallen short of delivering on those promises. “We’re getting into more stuff abroad and not really focusing on economics here,” he told the NYT. “It doesn’t seem like he’s holding true to anything that he’s promised.”
Meanwhile, John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster, told the NYT that Democrats “are doing nothing to move their own numbers because they don’t have an economic message.” He added: “They [Democrats] think that this is about Trump’s numbers getting worse. They need to worry about their numbers.”