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THE LEFT NEEDS MORE WORKING-CLASS LEADERS  
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Jake Triola
September 9, 2026
Jacobin
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_ A new report finds a massive divide between working-class voters
and college-educated progressives. Closing it means handing
working-class people real power over a left-wing program. _

Troy Jackson holds a pulaski axe given to him during a gathering
after being selected by the Maine Democratic Party to be their choice
as the US Senate nominee to replace Graham Platner on the ballot in
November on July 25, 2026, in Bangor, Maine. , Joe Raedle / Getty
Images

 

Two factions of the American left that ought to be allies remain
estranged. In their new report
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entitled The Left’s Coalition Crisis, Joan C. Williams, author of
Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them
Back, and Jared Abbott, the director of the Center for Working Class
Politics, argue that a “massive divide” between working-class
people and college-educated liberals is undermining the majority the
Left needs to govern. And it’s playing out now across the country:
as liberals double down on an obsession with defending democracy
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Democratic candidates more attuned to the needs of working Americans
are winning on [[link removed]] a platform
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like rent, wages, and safety.

Williams and Abbott’s report, which can be real in full here
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dissects the results of a poll the authors conducted earlier this year
and lays out the contrasting political priorities of respondents based
on their backgrounds. From there, they offer insight into how the
language and moral posturing (“Do the Work,” “Check Your
Privilege”) of the middle class repeatedly fails to strike a chord
with working-class perspectives. One of their findings is that
college-educated liberals lack what the authors call “class
competence”: the ability to speak persuasively to working-class
values. And with the class divide as sharp
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it’s not a skill that can be faked. Williams and Abbott’s
prescription is more practical: listen to what working-class people
say they want, drop the moralizing vocabulary, and cede real influence
over the progressive agenda to working people.

Paychecks, Prices, and Safety

So what do working-class voters actually want? According to the
report’s data, their priorities center on paychecks, prices, and
personal safety. These are the root issues that, if addressed, can
drive social transformation from below: when people see results like
higher wages, lower bills, and safer communities, they trust whoever
delivered them — and they join up, organize, and win at an
institutional level.

Since the first Trump administration, many progressives, taking on the
identity of “the Resistance,” have focused their energy on one
thing above all: democracy. But, the report argues, talking endlessly
about the idea of democracy doesn’t garner working-class interest,
support, or activity nearly as effectively as tackling economic and
security concerns. It’s a simple equation that’s unfolded over and
over since 2016: when liberal elites come across as out of touch, the
Right cynically capitalizes on voters’ resentment and wins.

Two Sets of Priorities

Williams and Abbott divide their report into six sections, and
together they hand the Left a diagnosis and a cure far more
politically productive than a messaging makeover built out of
poll-tested slogans.

Despite presumably being on the same team politically, working-class
voters and college-educated liberals don’t share priorities when
polled. Working-class voters care about wages, prices, and safety more
than anything, while college-educated liberals prize abstractions like
_democracy_, as mentioned, and _abundance_. Both can encompass
material concerns, but in practice they work as blankets — a way to
address the cost side of an affordability crisis without ever
promising guaranteed jobs at good wages. Herein lies the gap the Right
has used to pick off working-class voters who feel unheard.

The answer is what Williams and Abbott call “class competence,” an
antidote based first on respect. They ask liberals to drop the jargon
and frame even the most hot-button issues like abortion, public
safety, and transgender rights in terms that reflect daily life, like
_security_. This is an example of class-competent reframing, which
they’ve found can quickly change minds on an array of issues. But
reframing is only half the solution. The other half is the structure
of power on the Left. If liberals want to build coalitions that last,
they can’t simply convert _their_ agenda into the language of the
working class. Instead, they must allow working-class people to call
the shots to begin with.

Even after reframing, the gaps can remain large. For instance, when a
carbon tax is framed as falling on emitters rather than households,
working-class support jumps to 65 percent — up from 40 percent when
the same tax is described as costing households a dollar a month. But
even after that jump, a 25 point class gap between working-class and
liberal-elite sympathies remains. Fully closing these gaps will
require long-term organizing around issues that align with
working-class values.

Candidates From the Class Itself

This is where the current wave of populism can play a key role.
Americans aren’t wrong
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to feel left behind, but when only upper-middle-class progressives run
for office, the working-class base that vastly outnumbers them is left
cold. If the Left cultivated a leadership as working-class as its
base — one that plainly names the villains people recognize from
daily life, like price gouging and corporate greed — it would have
a much better shot at a durable majority.

Institutions like the New Jersey AFL-CIO Labor Candidates School and
Alaska’s Arthur A. Allman Labor Candidate School are already
producing a steady stream of such candidates. When those running for
office come from union halls, community organizations, and safety
committees rather than think tanks and consulting firms, working-class
people finally see themselves on the ballot. Without these kinds of
candidates, the working class and the professional class will remain
divided.

Williams and Abbott make it clear that progressives can expand their
base without abandoning their goals. But they must give up on the
delusion that the priorities of the professional class are universal.
Cross-class coalitions require policies that materially touch
working-class lives and, in the process, speak from a place of
solidarity, not scorn. If progressives want to win, they need to treat
the working class not as a demographic to be captured but as genuine
partners in a coalition for change.

Jake Triola is a writer and research associate at the Center for
Working-Class Politics.

Jacobin is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist
perspectives on politics, economics, and culture. The print magazine
is released quarterly and reaches 75,000 subscribers, in addition to a
web audience of over 3,000,000 a month.

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