There are very few concepts more important yet more misunderstood in American politics than the beliefs and voting patterns of the working class. Republicans now claim to be a working class party, while Democrats despair at the idea of losing working class voters, the core of the old New Deal coalition. Despite the increased interest from both parties in speaking on behalf of these voters and attracting their support, there is a remarkable vagueness about who constitutes the working class and what they actually believe.
Many commentators associate social class with educational attainment, and nothing else. That means that in many polls, non-college-educated voters are automatically understood as working class. The millionaire owner of a car dealership or several fast-food restaurants might be considered part of the same “working class” as one of their salesmen or cashiers. In addition, there is a clear tendency to treat white, male, non-college-educated individuals as the prototypical working class voters, completely glossing over the needs and experiences of everyone who is neither white nor male.
Last year, Working Families began a process to gain a better understanding of the motivations, values, and voting patterns of the multi-racial working class in the United States. Starting in the spring of 2023, our sister organization, Working Families Power, led an ambitious project alongside HIT Strategies and the Justice Research Collaborative, using a large-sample poll, focus groups, and extensive research. Instead of just taking educational attainment into account, the report includes income and type of occupation to help build an accurate picture of who working class voters are and what they believe. The result is a deep, detailed report that provides a much more nuanced picture of this group that runs counter to conventional wisdom.
The first and most important point is that the working class is both large and extraordinarily diverse. Our estimate is that close to two-thirds of the electorate (63%) can be considered to fall into this category: 13% are lower working class, 25% middle working class, and 25% upper working class. By our analysis, 20% of voters are middle class, and 11% are upper-middle or upper class.
The working class is, on average, younger, less white, and less likely to be college-educated. Two-thirds of them have household incomes below $75,000 a year; they are much more likely to live in rural or urban areas and to be renters. They were also much more likely to be Trump voters; Biden won this group by one point, compared to his 18-point edge among the upper class.
The second important finding is that, on average, working class voters have fairly similar beliefs as other groups on most social and cultural issues. Non-working class voters, for instance, are not more progressive on immigration than working class voters, even when restricting the sample to white voters. This pattern holds for abortion, family values, or LGBTQ rights. Working class voters are also considerably less nationalistic than other groups (less supportive of military strength) and display lower racial resentment on average (though less so for white voters). The only issue where they are slightly more conservative than the upper classes is sex and gender roles.
There is one big issue area where working class voters greatly differ from other voters: economic fairness. The single biggest class divider in the sample was the reaction to the statement, “Workers in this country generally get the pay and benefits they deserve.” Working class voters overwhelmingly disagreed, while upper class voters supported the assertion. The lack of jobs with good pay and benefits was seen as an urgent problem for working class respondents, the exact opposite of their more well-off counterparts. As a result, working class voters are much more likely to support bold progressive policies like a jobs guarantee, free college tuition, or single-payer healthcare.
So if working class voters—this big, massive group—are not that conservative on social issues but much more progressive on economic policy, how are they trending, and why? Because the working class is really diverse, groups within the working class vote at very different rates and have very different sets of beliefs.
The report subdivides the working class into seven subgroups of roughly the same size (13-16%), by looking at their values and political preferences. Each of these groups engages in politics very differently and votes at significantly different rates. One of the groups (Core MAGA, in the study) is made up of Republican partisans and votes at much higher rates than the rest. Only two groups are partisan Democrats (Next Gen Left and Mainstream Liberals) and have lower participation rates. The other four groups (Anti-Woke Traditionalists, Suburban Moderates, Diverse Disaffected Conservatives, and Tuned-Out Persuadables) are quite split on their voting preferences and ready to be persuaded to vote one way or the other.
I will not dwell on the exact demographic breakdown of each cluster; they have marked gender, income, age, and geographical differences. It should be clear, however, that there is no such thing as a typical working class voter. Instead, there are several subgroups ready to be mobilized and persuaded. Most of them share a common preference for bold progressive economic policies (outside the MAGA core and some suburban moderates), but have very diverse views on social issues—just like the rest of the electorate.
What does all this mean in electoral terms? First of all, the working class is limited to pundit descriptions of increasingly angry white men without college degrees and trending Republican. Some working class voters fit this description, but for every MAGA or social conservative voter in this category, there are six working class voters in other groups. Second, non-MAGA working class voters require a more targeted, precise strategy that directly addresses their priorities—one that focuses on their economic anxieties. Third, for these voters, both turnout and persuasion matter. Some groups that lean Democratic are disengaged, but for a significant portion of this electorate, candidates and political parties must do the work to earn their vote.