Shut out of power in Washington, Democrats grapple with how to win over young men and working-class voters

CNN

2 days ago

One effort from a group of veteran Democrats envisions a $20 million project to woo young men. Another liberal organization is on a 20-state listening tour to reach working-class Americans.
The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, is in the throes of what its new chairman, Ken Martin, calls an extensive 'postelection review' — examining not only the missteps of the party and the campaign of 2024 presidential nominee Kamala Harris but also the broad Democratic-aligned ecosystem that he said spent more than $10 billion in the last election, only to be shut out of power in Washington.
Nearly seven months after Republicans won the White House and both chambers of Congress, Democrats are still coming to terms with the reasons behind their stinging defeats and looking for ways to claw back some power in next year's midterm elections. Intraparty debates are raging about the words Democrats use, the policies they should promote and even the podcasts they join.
The causes for the alarm are clear.
The Democratic Party's standing has fallen dramatically, with its favorability rating hitting 29% in March, a record low in CNN's polling dating to 1992. That's a drop of 20 points since January 2021, when President Donald Trump ended his first term.
And a CNN poll released Sunday shows Americans are far more likely to see Republicans than Democrats as the party with strong leaders. In a further sign of trouble for the party, the CNN survey shows the dim view of Democrats' leadership is driven by relatively weak support from their own partisans. Republican-aligned adults, for example, are 50 points likelier than Democratic-aligned adults to say their own party has strong leaders.
'People believe the Democratic Party is weak, and they believe that Donald Trump is strong and authentic,' the DNC's Martin put it bluntly in a recent interview with CNN. 'I happen to believe Trump is a small, petty, insecure man who's a fraud, and there's nothing authentic about him.'
'But it doesn't matter what I believe,' he added. 'The reality is that Americans want strength and authenticity in their leaders.'
The postelection soul-searching extends far beyond the DNC — with a cottage industry of multimillion-dollar political research projects springing to life in recent months to better understand the party's stumbles. And while election postmortems are typical exercises for the losing party, some prominent Democrats are expressing exasperation that a fresh round of consultant-aided introspection will only further paint their party as out of touch.
Several potential presidential contenders are calling for less study and more straight talk.
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, viewed as a rising star in the Democratic Party after winning a tough Senate battle last year in a state that went for Trump, warns that voters tune out Democrats they perceive as sounding 'professorial.'
'During the campaign, especially, talking to Latino men, you could tell they were financially hurting, but also psychologically hurting in the sense that they felt they were no longer able to provide for their families,' Gallego said in an interview with CNN.
It would be a mistake, then, he said, 'to come and talk to them and use terms like 'social equity' versus 'Man, this sucks. You really are in a bad position.' When you can actually empathize, with the language they use, they are more likely to open up.'
(Gallego demurred last week when asked about his 2028 ambitions, noting the imminent arrival of his third child. 'Right now, I'm focused on being a good dad to my kids,' he said.)
In recent days, two other potential 2028 Democratic contenders — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore — implored their party to emphasize the practical during speeches in the early primary state of South Carolina.
'I saw recently that apparently, the Democrats got together and hired a bunch of people — and they went into the hotel to discuss how we could best message to people. How we could calibrate the words we are using,' Walz, the party's 2024 vice presidential nominee, told attendees at the South Carolina Democratic Party's convention Saturday. 'That's how we got into this damn mess! 'Cause we're really cautious.'
In his South Carolina appearances, Moore sought to cast himself as action-focused.
'Gone are the days when we were the party of multiyear studies on things that we already know, gone are the days when we are the party of panels, gone are the days when we are the party of college debate club rules,' Moore told a crowd in Columbia on Friday. 'We must be the party of action, and that action must come now.'
Among the Democratic messaging and outreach efforts earning attention and some ridicule: a new project dubbed 'Speaking with American Men,' which aims to 'deeply understand the values, frustrations, and motivations driving the political shifts among young men ages 18 to 29,' according to a prospectus its leaders began circulating around the time of Trump's inauguration in January.
(Trump himself recently joined the derision that erupted following a first mention of the Democratic project in a New York Times story. 'I read that they want to spend money to learn how to talk,' he told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. 'That's fake. You don't want to be fake.')
But those behind the project — Ilyse Hogue, the former president of the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, and John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics — described it as vital to Democrats' hopes of winning back support from young men who were part of Trump's winning coalition last year.
Hogue declined to reveal the amount of funding the group, also known as SAM, has received. But the investments have helped underwrite 30 focus groups with young men this spring and early research into the digital platforms — such as Discord, known for its gaming communities — where Republicans have effectively spread messages to these voters in recent years.
The goal is to spend $20 million over two years researching, engaging with and winning over some of these young voters. The SAM plans, for instance, include spending money on in-game digital ads and promoting the voices of people who share Democrats' views on the social hubs where these potential voters spend their time.
The young men Democrats need to win back are 'surrounded every day by these right-wing messages,' Hogue said. 'We can't win if we don't play.'
Della Volpe, who served as an adviser to Joe Biden's 2020 campaign, said the discussions in the focus groups underscored the deep alienation these men feel. A recurring theme, he said, is: ''We have never felt like anyone has had our back. … Why are you asking me to defend the democracy, be part of the system that doesn't really work for me?''
Hogue said the voters SAM will target 'mostly want to see themselves as included in the big tent of Democratic politics and have their real pains and fears affirmed and know that someone is looking out for them.'
The nonprofit arm of American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic opposition research group, has heard similar concerns from voters as part of a $4.5 million 'Working Class Project' that's taking its team to 20 states.
A common perception among those in the American Bridge focus groups 'is the idea that 'Democrats don't care about people like me, that their first, primary goal is for other groups they consider at risk, who are not like me,'' said the organization's president, Pat Dennis.
It's one reason that an ad Republicans repeatedly deployed against Harris in the closing weeks of the 2024 campaign proved so effective, Dennis said.
Trump's political operation seized on Harris' past positions on health care for transgender Americans to hammer the Democrat with ads that ended with the tagline, 'Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.' In all, Trump's campaign and an aligned super PAC spent more than $46 million on the spots, according to a tally from the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
But in a roundly criticized move, Harris' campaign responded blandly with a spot that criticized negative attacks but sidestepped the transgender rights issue entirely.
'A lot of voters, including working-class voters, don't care about the transgender issue,' Dennis said. But the Republican ad bombardment last year reinforced an image of Democrats preoccupied with identity group politics that don't affect many Americans.
But he cautioned against Democrats now concluding that renouncing their support for transgender rights will be a winning strategy in 2026 and 2028.
'The solution,' Dennis said, 'is talking about these issues that are important to every voter, including transgender voters and saying that 'First, my priority is good jobs, lowering the cost of living, making sure everyone has access to health care.''
It's clear that the anti-transgender messaging from Republicans isn't going away.
As president, Trump has repeatedly threatened punitive actions against states and institutions over their policies on transgender athletes.
And the theme has surfaced again this year in spots underwritten by a Republican-aligned outside group during college basketball playoffs, targeting Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat seeking reelection next year in a state Trump carried in 2024.
Joe Jacobson, the founder of Progress Action Fund, a Democratic super PAC that is hoping to spend $25 million broadly targeting young men over the next year and a half, is urging the party to tackle the transgender rights issue head-on.
'We need to step up and not be silent about it because when we were silent about it the last time, we lost,' Jacobson said.
An upcoming ad Jacobson recently previewed for journalists reframes the debate as Republican overreach into Americans' private lives. The 30-second spot shows an older White man, purporting to be a Republican congressman, confronting a girl in a bathroom stall and demanding proof of her gender.
'Bathrooms are private,' the girl responds. 'Don't you have anything better to do?'
Despite the persistent problems with their brand, Democrats insist they see potential opportunities ahead of this year's gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey and next year's congressional midterms.
Polls — including the CNN survey released Sunday — show that Americans' confidence in the GOP's handling of the economy has waned. Additionally, Democrats have overperformed in several elections this year.
Martin, the DNC chair, pointed to voters in deep-red Missouri last year approving ballot measures supporting paid sick leave, a minimum-wage increase and protections for abortion, even as the state backed Trump by a more than 15-point margin.
'Our policies that we support are wildly popular, but the Democratic Party is not associated with them,' he said. 'But none of this is unfixable, right? We have an opportunity right now to change those perceptions.'