Economic Populism Works

What is economic populism? It is rhetoric consisting of two elements. First, it is a vocal recognition of the working class, its contributions to the economy, and its entitlement to a comfortable standard of living. On the flip side, an economic populist also points out villains — namely, the economic elites that prevent workers from attaining what they deserve.

To be clear, this is not an arbitrary set of criteria, but contains real substance. Raising up the working class is important but is ultimately just talk: We live in a world where politicians of all persuasions name-check the working class at every turn. (Perhaps twenty years ago this would set one apart, but no longer.) On the other hand, going after elites demonstrates one’s willingness to turn down votes, to turn down money — in short, to make enemies with the rich. A costly signal is an effective signal.

This formulation of economic populism bears empirical support as well. Last year, CWCP released a report on Democratic rhetoric in the 2022 midterms. Across a variety of statistical specifications, and accounting for an array of district characteristics, we found that naming and shaming economic elites increased a candidate’s level of working-class support significantly.

We’ve also tested the impact of this rhetoric in randomized experiments. In a study conducted in 2021, we found that populist, economically progressive rhetoric, delivered in plain-spoken, universalist language, was preferred to various alternatives. In a follow-up experiment from 2023, we further found that economic populism is popular among working-class voters and doesn’t push away non-working-class voters.

Perhaps most important, a message test on Pennsylvania voters the month before the election showed that economic populist messaging performed best and did significantly better than messaging around “protecting democracy.” Yet the Harris campaign frequently deployed the latter.

It Was Not an Economic Populist Campaign

In spite of what some commentators have claimed, Harris simply was not an economic populist candidate.

A new analysis of Harris’s rhetoric decisively shows that over the course of the campaign, she deployed less and less populist language, instead opting for more messaging around protecting democracy. With fewer than three weeks until the election, the campaign reportedly refused to air what its super PAC found to be its most effective ad, attacking landlords and price gougers for making it too hard to get by. According to Biden campaign insiders, decisions like this were at the explicit behest of Uber leadership — whose chief legal officer is Kamala Harris’s brother-in-law — and other well-connected individuals.

Nor did the Harris campaign offer a particularly ambitious policy agenda. Its core mantra was the “opportunity economy,” nine syllables that convey essentially nothing. As we have argued elsewhere — and contra perpetual claims that the Dems just need to moderate — backing up economic populist rhetoric with bold policy is essential to demonstrating to working-class voters that a candidate can actually deliver on promises.

And it certainly did not help that Harris took office in 2021 saddled with the unpopular rhetoric from her short-lived primary campaign. Indeed, our 2021 study found that Harris’s messaging style at the time — economically moderate but “woke” in affect — was least popular of all the alternatives that we tested. Perhaps she could have shed this reputation, except that throughout Joe Biden’s administration, she was forced to toe his line. Which brings us to the next issue.

It Was Not an Economic Populist Presidency

During the final weeks of her campaign, Harris still refused to distance herself from any aspect of an unpopular Biden administration, notoriously saying “there is not a thing that comes to mind” that she would have done differently. If Harris was willing to tie her campaign’s fate to the accomplishments of President Biden, was it because he had espoused and enacted an economic populist vision?

Now, in Biden’s defense, Build Back Better began as a significant expansion of the social safety net, and one that could have perhaps alleviated the economic malaise of the last four years. But as we have argued elsewhere, the policies that ultimately passed — the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act — while steps in the right direction, were simply not ambitious enough to demonstrate that the party is serious about delivering for the working class.

To the extent that the Biden administration was on the side of workers, it did not communicate this effectively. His mental state rapidly decaying, Biden was simply not capable of connecting with the people to convey his economic vision. Further, the administration did not advertise its wins. Contrast New Deal programs like the Works Progress Administration, whose initials were found at the site of every public project it created, with the Inflation Reduction Act, whose positive impacts went largely unnoticed. One analysis of the administration’s Twitter communications found that officials largely abandoned a focus on Build Back Better as they pivoted to other priorities like the budget deficit.

Nor did Democrats as a whole put forward a populist narrative. Our analysis of 2022 midterm candidates found that less than 20 percent of Dems attacked large corporations, billionaires, Wall Street, or price gouging. Less than 15 percent went after corporate money in politics, and less than 5 percent went after corporate greed, big banks, or the top 1 percent. A breakdown of Democrats’ television ads showed similar results. We also found that barely any Democratic candidates were working class themselves — not a good look for a wannabe workers’ party.

Far from a populist narrative, for much of the Biden presidency it appeared that Dem leadership had no narrative at all. In the face of a populace reeling from inflation, as well as from the expirations of the child tax credit expansion, extended unemployment insurance, and enhanced Medicaid and SNAP benefits — the attitude of the president, party, and punditry appeared to be: “Keep moving, nothing to see here.”

In sum, Biden did not communicate a working-class-oriented vision of the economy, nor did he translate his limited wins to the public, nor acknowledge the economic hardship so many have faced. His exiting the race so late made it that much harder for Kamala Harris (or any candidate) to disentangle herself from this image — but regardless, the damage was done.

Going forward, Democrats face an uphill battle. Amid the cacophony of a frenetic media, eager to drown out people’s real concerns with the latest culture-war content, it will be difficult for Democrats to rebuild their reputation as the party of workers. Decades of dealignment are not going to be undone quickly or easily.

It will take a unified, aggressive rhetoric to break through the noise. It will take a bold policy agenda, and a coalition of working-class candidates and unions fighting for it. This is no small task — but the alternatives to it look grimmer by the day.