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Can Democrats Reconnect with Working-Class Voters? Tim Ryan Thinks So
Interview with Tim Ryan
Former Congressman and PPI Senior Advisor
For Channel 4 News
The Democrats are in crisis — leaderless, divided, and drifting after Donald Trump’s return to power, and on the left, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Bernie Sanders and the Democrat's New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani are seizing the moment, but is their radicalism the way to beat Trump's Maga bandwagon?
Or will they end up alienating the majority of working class America?
Tim Ryan, PPI Senior Advisor, is the former Ohio Congressman who stood for the Senate but lost to JD Vance. He also threw his hat in the ring for the Democrats Presidential nomination when Joe Biden won it.
He wants to haul his party back to focus on what he sees as the central concerns of working class voters - their cost of living and the fairness of the system, as well as working with business not against it - what he sometimes calls more of a Bill Clinton style. But is that really the answer to a Democrat resurrection?
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New from the Experts
ICYMI: The People Who Brought You Bill Clinton Want to Introduce You to the "Colorado Way," ft. Will Marshall, President
⮕ Politico
WATCH: Ben Ritz, Vice President of Policy Development: How Trump’s BBB Adds to the National Debt
⮕ NewsNation
Diana Moss, Vice President and Director of Competition Policy: Antitrust’s Death Knell for Amateurism and College Sports: A March Madness Case Study
⮕ PPI Publication
Mary Guenther, Head of Space Policy: Houston, We Have a Problem: Scrapping the Space Station Harms the U.S.
⮕ The Hill
Richard D. Kahlenberg, Director of PPI's American Identity Project and Ruy Texiera: Bobby Kennedy, Liberal Patriot: What RFK’s Approach Could Teach Political Leaders Today
⮕ PPI and AEI Publication
Tamar Jacoby, Director of the New Ukraine Project: Trump’s Shift on Ukraine is Welcome, but Now What?
⮕ Washington Monthly
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When we looked at what has worked electorally for the center left – in the U.K. a year ago, in Australia, in pockets of the U.S. where some Democrats had outperformed the norm – we found common themes. Successful candidates persuaded voters – against the odds – to believe in them: to believe that they would deliver for them.
This report sets out to unpack the insight gained from hours of conversation with strategists and the crucial voters they set out to woo in the U.S., U.K., Australia and Germany – and to turn that insight into practical ways for progressives to remake the broken contract between government and the people, and start to win again.
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Do Our Leaders Really Care About Us? To Keep Us on Side They Must Prove They Do
By Deborah Mattinson, PPI Contributor, and Claire Ainsley, Director of PPI's Project on Center-Left Renewal
For The Observer
A few weeks ago, Sam Freedman wrote in The Observer about the challenges facing the centre right. After listening to hundreds of voters and senior strategists in the US, Germany, Australia and the UK for new research for the Progressive Policy Institute, it is hard not to conclude that centre left parties are facing their own difficulties too.
The findings should make every politician deemed part of the status quo sit up and take notice. You could say it is a plague on all your mainstream parties.
Voters around the world have never been more disaffected, especially those from the struggling working classes. Previously thriving and optimistic that their kids could “better themselves”, many now feel beleaguered; neglected by “tired” political parties that once championed their cause. In Germany, voters asked to imagine the Social Democratic Party (SPD) as a drink chose stale coffee, contrasting with the populist AfD, seen as “an energy drink” , “fresh, ready to provide a much needed shake-up”.
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Staff Spotlight: Claire Ainsley
Director of the Project on Center-Left Renewal
Claire Ainsley is the Director of the Project on Center-Left Renewal at the Progressive Policy Institute. Claire joined PPI in 2023. She served as Executive Director for Policy for Opposition Leader Keir Starmer from 2020-2022. Claire also served as the Executive Director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, where she led JRF’s work on the social and political attitudes of people with low incomes. She is the author of “The New Working Class: How to Win Hearts, Minds and Votes,” which was published in May 2018.
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