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Say what you want about James Carville, but he was right when he coined that phrase for Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. It’s a lesson Democrats keep forgetting.
When people vote, it almost always comes down to 4 or 5 priorities:
Putting food on the table
Paying for housing and keeping the lights on
Staying healthy without medical debt
Making sure their kids get a good education
Getting to work on time
All of these are economic issues. Even the issues that don’t appear economic on the surface are tied back to the economy.
You want to talk about safety? Without jobs and opportunity, schools fail, crime rises, and food deserts form.
You want to talk about immigration? Deporting workers shrinks the workforce, raises food and construction costs, and slashes tax revenue.
You want to talk about the environment? Dirty air and water drive up healthcare costs and lower productivity. Climate change disrupts food supply and spikes grocery prices. Transitioning to clean energy requires affordable EVs and reliable transit.
The list goes on. But it all comes back to one thing: the economy.
Don’t mistake this for a “Third Way” revival. Quoting Carville doesn’t mean politicking like him. This isn’t about running to the middle and punching left. It’s about getting back to our Democratic roots: fighting for everyday Americans against billionaires who profit from their struggles—without compromising our values.
If we return to campaigning on the basics—home, bills, food, health, schools, and work—we win.
Voters Vote with their Wallets.
Voters don’t always vote with their hearts or even their brains. They vote with their wallets and their pocketbooks. And election after election, the economy tops the list:
2024 Presidential Election: [ [link removed] ] the economy was the most critical issue.
2022 Midterms: [ [link removed] ] the economy was the most critical issue.
2020 Presidential Election: [ [link removed] ] the economy was the most critical issue.
2018 Midterms: [ [link removed] ] healthcare was #1, but the economy came right after.
2016 Presidential Election: [ [link removed] ] the economy was the most critical issue.
You get the general idea. Cycle after cycle, it’s been right there in front of us.
And yet, after every loss, strategists and pundits scratch their heads and ask: “Was it because of abortion? Was it because she was a woman? Was it because we didn’t talk enough about trans kids in schools?”
F***ING NO. The voters have been telling us what matters every single time—it’s the economy.
And here’s the kicker: it’s not like voters are against us on social issues. In fact, most Americans agree with Democrats on nearly all of them:
63% believe [ [link removed] ] abortion should be legal.
68% support [ [link removed] ]marriage equality and LGBTQ rights.
58% favor [ [link removed] ] stricter gun laws.
61% say [ [link removed] ] climate change is a serious problem.
68% approve [ [link removed] ]of labor unions (the highest in 60 years).
81% believe [ [link removed] ] the criminal justice system needs reform.
These aren’t controversial positions. The real divide isn’t on social issues—it’s on whether people feel like they can afford groceries, rent, gas, or healthcare. That’s where elections are won and lost.
When it comes to voters’ issues, the economy is king. And the state of the economy—or more importantly, how people perceive the state of the economy—will dictate how they vote, especially in presidential years.
This isn’t new. History has been screaming it at us:
In 2008 [ [link removed] ], America was in the midst of the Great Recession. Voters blamed George Bush and Republicans, and they chose Barack Obama.
In 2016, [ [link removed] ] plenty of voters still felt left behind after eight years of Obama. They wanted change and rolled the dice on Donald Trump.
In 2020 [ [link removed] ], Trump’s disastrous handling of the economy during COVID sank him, so voters turned back to Joe Biden.
In 2024, [ [link removed] ] people were feeling the crunch from inflation and rising costs. Whether the numbers said things were improving didn’t matter—public perception said otherwise. And Biden and Harris paid the price.
Social Justice and Equality, But Make It Different
What also matters is how Democrats are perceived when it comes to handling the economy. And unfortunately, cycle after cycle, Democrats get cast as the party that doesn’t understand bread-and-butter economics.
In 2024, voters said Trump would handle the economy better than Kamala Harris—54% to 45%. We all know how that ended.
A recent poll by the Searchlight Institute [ [link removed] ] asked voters in battleground states what issues leaders should focus on: affordability, healthcare, and jobs. The same poll asked what issues voters think Democrats are focused on: climate change, LGBTQ+ issues, and healthcare. The New York Times echoed [ [link removed] ] the same thing earlier this year. The result? Voters conclude Democrats don’t share their priorities.
And that’s on us. For years, Democrats’ biggest rallying cry has been “saving democracy.” Don’t get me wrong—it’s a noble cause. But when people can’t afford groceries, when rent is eating half their paycheck, when medical debt is crushing them, talk of authoritarianism or “the orangeman in the White House” doesn’t land. It’s not that they don’t care—it’s that survival comes first.
Here’s the truth: economic justice is social justice. Equity isn’t just about identity—it’s about making sure people can afford a home, have healthcare that won’t bankrupt them, and send their kids to good schools. Standing up for unions and organizing for workers is fighting for equity. Raising wages and lowering costs is fighting for equity. Yet Democrats too often silo these struggles as separate lanes.
The irony is, we already have the moral high ground. We’re the ones fighting for the working class. Republicans are very open about the fact that they legislate for billionaires and their donors. And yet, because we don’t tell the story well enough, we still lose the “economy” perception war.
If Democrats want to save democracy, we have to connect it directly to the economy. Not just what we’re saving it from—but what we’re saving it for.
That’s the difference between being on defense and actually giving voters a reason to turn out. When we focus only on warning about authoritarianism, we sound like we’re asking people to vote out of fear. When we connect democracy to lowering grocery bills, keeping people in their homes, protecting unions, and building an economy that works for everyone, we give them something to fight for.
Because we need to give voters something to vote for, not just something to vote against.
The closest Democrats have come to recentering the economy in recent years has been through the Fighting Oligarchy tour with Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Together, they’ve gone into red and purple districts that too many Democrats write off, hammering on affordability, union power, and the corrosive influence of billionaires.
What’s striking is not just their message—it’s their audience. They’ve drawn large, diverse crowds in areas represented by Republicans who haven’t lifted a finger for working families. Instead of talking past people, they’ve spoken to the pain of rising grocery bills, unaffordable housing, and medical debt. They’ve shown voters that Democrats can be the party of the working class again, not just the party warning about Trump.
That’s the blueprint: speak directly to material struggles, tie them to corporate greed and billionaire dominance, and show how progressive economic policy improves people’s daily lives.
Because here’s the bottom line: voters know Republicans are fighting for billionaires. If we don’t prove—loudly and clearly—that Democrats are fighting for them, we’ll keep losing ground. And instead of chasing the Right’s talking points, we need to double down on the economic fights that actually win people’s trust.
Don’t play down to their level.
One flag I want to reiterate is this: in 2024, instead of focusing on the issues voters told us were the most important, too many Democrats decided to chase voters who were never on our side to begin with.
Representatives like Seth Moulton [ [link removed] ] and Tom Suozzi [ [link removed] ] were quick to scapegoat marginalized groups like trans kids in sports as the reason Democrats lost ground. Others went even further.
Forty-six Democrats in the House [ [link removed] ] and eleven in the Senate [ [link removed] ] voted for the flawed Laken Riley Act, a bill that demonizes immigrants and trashes due process. That single vote helped pave the way for Trump’s ICE-led mass deportations.
Thirty-one House Democrats [ [link removed] ] even voted to give Trump and Republicans full control of sentencing laws in the District of Columbia—this after many had publicly argued that crime in DC wasn’t nearly as bad as Fox News was making it out to be. Their votes weren’t about solving problems; they were about fear and expediency.
These betrayals sent a clear message to the base: instead of fighting for you, we’ll throw you under the bus if we think it’ll win us a couple of “swing voters” who were never with us in the first place.
Let’s be blunt: if the number one issue keeping someone from voting for Kamala Harris was transgender athletes, they were never going to vote for us. And yet, we wasted precious oxygen and political capital pandering to these voters, while ignoring the ones who actually could have made the difference—the disaffected millions who sat out the election because they feel both parties have abandoned them and that both parties are the same.
And while I reject the premise, I understand the frustration.
That’s the tragedy. Because every time Democrats echo right-wing frames or cave on issues of justice, we reinforce the very narrative that fuels the “both sides are the same” cynicism. And that cynicism is poison. It keeps working families, young people, and communities of color—our base—from showing up
That’s why the campaigns that are cutting through are the ones centering kitchen table economics. Rep. Mikie Sherrill rolled out a “Save You Time and Money” [ [link removed] ] agenda in her New Jersey gubernatorial bid, hammering affordability as her north star. State Senator Zohran Mamdani has put economic justice at the center of his New York City Mayoral platform [ [link removed] ] by emphasizing housing affordability, grocery prices, and childcare costs. And here in Virginia, Rep. Abigail Spanberger launched her “Affordable Virginia” [ [link removed] ] plan for governor—contrasting her agenda for lower costs [ [link removed] ] with Lt. Governor Winsome Sears’ record of supporting Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which raised costs for everyday Americans.
And how has Sears responded? With ads about…trans kids in schools and trans athletes.
This is the contrast. One side is offering voters real solutions to make their lives easier and more affordable. The other side is obsessing over culture war fights that have nothing to do with your rent, your grocery bill, or your paycheck.
The answer isn’t to play down to their level. It’s to raise the stakes back up—to show voters that Democrats stand for them, not against them.
The Blueprint For Us, Not Just Against Them
I have said it before, and I will say it again: we need to give the voters a reason to vote for us and not just against them.
We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Democrats already have the blueprint for how to win, and it dates back nearly a century. Franklin Delano Roosevelt showed us exactly what happens when a party is bold enough to take on concentrated wealth and put working families first. His New Deal didn’t just provide relief in the darkest days of the Depression — it rebuilt faith in government, created millions of jobs, and gave people a reason to believe that politics could change their lives for the better.
Every time Democrats have remembered that lesson, we’ve built durable coalitions and made progress. When we’ve drifted away from it, we’ve lost ground. The War on Poverty, Medicare, Social Security, and the expansion of civil rights all grew from the idea that government should be on the side of ordinary people. But in the decades since, too many Democrats bought into austerity politics and Wall Street talking points, drifting toward centrist triangulation instead of doubling down on the bread-and-butter fights that actually win elections.
Republicans have no shame in telling us outright that their agenda is to serve the billionaire class. That’s their side of the fight. Our side has to be clear and unapologetic about ours: to serve working people. Economic justice is social justice. Affordable housing, strong unions, good schools, and access to healthcare aren’t just policies — they’re the building blocks of a fair society. And Democrats have the legacy, the record, and the moral high ground to make that case.
This isn’t just a national strategy—it’s already happening on the ground. In Virginia, Delegate Joshua Cole has made his campaign merch all about “affordable housing, good-paying jobs, excellent schools, & affordable prescriptions.” Delegate Michael Feggans has leaned [ [link removed] ]into his veteran background, pointing out how Trump’s cuts hurt Virginia’s workforce, veterans’ healthcare, and military families in his district. And Lily Franklin, running in one of the most competitive districts in the Commonwealth, pushed back on attacks about her working-class roots by embracing them—showing in her ads [ [link removed] ] that she is just like so many voters she hopes to represent.
These aren’t side battles; they’re the fight. And if Democrats stick to them, we win.
Because at the end of the day, voters don’t want culture war nonsense. They don’t want scapegoats. They want to know how they’re going to pay for groceries, keep the lights on, see a doctor, and give their kids a future.
Republicans are handing us the playbook when they rant about trans kids or demonize immigrants. They’re telling us they’ve got nothing real to offer. That’s our opening. We don’t need to match them punch for punch on outrage—we need to hammer home that Democrats are the ones fighting for your paycheck, your health, your kids, and your home.
So here’s the bottom line: It’s the economy, damn it. It’s always been the economy. And the party that remembers that will be the party that wins.
And the message is that no matter who you are, where you’re from, who you love, how you worship, what your family looks like: you deserve to get ahead and not just get by. Period. It’s that simple.
And if the economy you are selling isn’t working for voters—like we tried to do in 2024—they won’t buy it.
TL;DR
Democrats keep overthinking elections, but the truth has never changed: it’s the economy, stupid. Voters consistently rank affordability, healthcare, and jobs as their top issues—yet Democrats too often focus on abstract ideas like “saving democracy” or get dragged into right-wing culture wars.
Cycle after cycle, public perception of who handles the economy better has swung elections—from Obama in 2008, to Trump in 2016, to Biden in 2020, and back to Trump in 2024. If people feel their wallets are hurting, they’ll vote for change—no matter who’s in charge.
Social issues still matter, but most Americans already side with Democrats on abortion rights, LGBTQ equality, unions, and climate action. What they want is a party that connects those fights back to their daily lives: lower grocery bills, affordable housing, decent healthcare, and good jobs.
When Democrats lead with pocketbook issues—as Bernie Sanders, AOC, Joshua Cole, Michael Feggans, Lily Franklin, and others have—voters respond. When they chase right-wing frames or scapegoat marginalized groups, they lose.
The blueprint exists: FDR’s New Deal, working-class populism, and campaigns rooted in economic justice. To win, Democrats don’t just need to run against Trump—they need to give people something to run for.
Bottom line: it’s still the economy, damn it—and whoever remembers that first will win.
SIDE BAR
If you live in the Commonwealth of Virginia, get out and vote before November 4th for our Democratic Nominees for Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, and your House of Delegates District! Early voting has already begun and goes until November 1st. This is the first real test of Democratic resilience during the 2nd Trump Administratio,n and as they say, as goes Virginia, so goes the nation!
To find your local early voting location, drop off sites, or your polling place and your candidates: go to iwillvote.com for more information!
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By the Ballot is an opinion series published on Substack. All views expressed are solely those of the author and should not be interpreted as reporting or objective journalism or attributed to any other individual or organization. I am not a journalist or reporter, nor do I claim to be one. This publication represents personal commentary, analysis, and opinion only.

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