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What leaders did these 2024 nonvoters admire? The top two in the poll were Bernie Sanders, approved by 78 percent, and AOC with 67 percent.
And these 2024 nonvoters have a split-screen view of the Democrats. In principle, said 39 percent, “They are more for the people and will fight for all Americans.” But at the same time, 24 percent said “they are weak and won’t stand up for Americans.”
When the poll asked what issues would make them more likely to vote in 2026, the top four were secure health insurance, making the rich pay their fair share of taxes while keeping taxes on working families affordable, the cost of living, and affordable housing.
In battleground states, 77 percent of 2020 Biden voters who stayed home in 2024 felt that the nation’s top problem was the top 1 percent taking too much at the expense of everyone else, but only 13 percent felt the main problems were government spending too much, out-of-control immigration, or “wokeness.”
Lake told me that Democrats in 2026 should “offer a populist economic alternative to Trump’s current economics that benefits wealthy corporations and wealthy political donors. Fight for working famiies, and offer specifics that you are willing to be accountable for.”
In one sense, the program sounds a lot like New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. But a program of making life affordable for working Americans doesn’t have to be expressed in ideological terms. A classic political-science finding is that Americans tend to be philosophical conservatives but operational liberals.
Identifying the right issues framed by the right narrative is important, but issues by themselves don’t galvanize potential voters. That takes an exciting candidate combined with effective organizing. It wasn’t issues by themselves that got 50,000 volunteers to knock on doors for Mamdani.
But Mamdani doesn’t have a monopoly on articulating the concerns of working families in a way that motivates nonvoters to become voters. Kitchen-table economics can also work for candidates who don’t describe themselves as socialists. |
