The Democratic National Committee is pivoting to a new message after a disastrous 2024 election cycle saw the party lose control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.
New DNC Chairman Ken Martin wants to switch up the game early in his tenure, releasing a lengthy memo that claims the Democratic Party “always has been and always will be the party of the worker.”
“I believe the canary in the coal mine for what happened on Nov. 5 was the recent showing that, for the first time in modern history, Americans now see the Republicans as the party of the working class and Democrats as the party of the elites,” Martin wrote. “As the Trump agenda fails our nation’s working communities, we have to take seriously the job of repairing and restoring the perceptions of our party and our brand.”
Martin is the son of a teenage mother and says programs advocated by Democrats helped his family not only survive but get ahead. He wants to see the party center that working-class message going forward.
That’s a big shift from the party’s message just months ago. Previous DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison advocated a strong identity politics focus not only before but even after the party’s losses in last November’s elections.
“When I wake up in the morning, when I look in the mirror, when I step out the door, I can’t rub this off,” Harrison, who is black, said during a speech in December while waving his hand in front of his face. “This is who I am. This is how the world perceives me.”
“That is my identity,” Harrison continued. “And it is not politics. It is my life. And the people that I need in the party, that I need to stand up for me, have to recognize that. You cannot run away from that.”
But Martin’s message, despite running more than 2,000 words, does not include the terms “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” or “gender.” It mentions identity only once, saying that unions “protect workers regardless of identity.”
The term “billionaire,” however, appears a dozen times. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and the face of the quasi-government Department of Government Efficiency, is mentioned by name 14 times.
Trump’s administration, according to Martin, includes more billionaires than any other in American history, with a combined net worth that exceeds the Gross Domestic Product of 172 nations.
Democrats have focused a lot of attention on Musk as the antithesis of working-class priorities, and Musk enjoys lower approval ratings than Trump, a fact the party will look to exploit in its messaging battle ahead of the midterm elections.
Meanwhile, inflation remains elevated, a fact that now works against Trump rather than for him.
“Since the election, Trump has backed away from his promise to bring prices down on day one,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon said. “It will cost him the same way that it cost [former President Joe] Biden.”
As such, Bannon says the messaging shift toward the economy is a no-brainer for his party.
Other Democrats are making the case too.
Newly installed Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) talked about the importance of winning back male voters in an interview with the New York Times.
“It was a joke, but I said a lot when I was talking to Latino men: ‘I’m going to make sure you get out of your mom’s house, get your troquita,’” he said. “For English speakers, that means your truck. Every Latino man wants a big-ass truck, which, nothing wrong with that.”
He scolded his party for failing to deliver that message to men over fears that it would somehow diminish the status of women. His joke about big trucks may also fly in the face of previous Democratic messaging about emissions.
President Donald Trump appealed to white, blue-collar workers in his 2016 upset victory over Hillary Clinton and made inroads with minority voters last year. Exit polls in 2024 found that he won 45% of the Latino vote, including a majority of Latino men, and made smaller gains among black men as well.
Those are trends that Democrats will look to halt with a focus on the economy and the concerns of workers.
To the extent that means union workers, Republicans will also be looking to defend newfound gains. Teamsters boss Sean O’Brien made history by speaking at last summer’s Republican National Convention, and Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s choice for Labor Secretary, has staked out a number of pro-labor positions as well.
Dave Carney, a Republican strategist in New Hampshire, predicted Martin would have a tough time selling his ideas to the progressive wing of his party.
“They can’t destroy their finance base,” he said, bringing up investor and mega-donor George Soros. “Until the Soros’s of the world drop this progressive bent, the Democrats are stuck holding their toxic baggage, and they will continue to refer to moms as birthing people.”
Doug Heye, a former Republican National Committee spokesman, agreed that it won’t be easy for Democrats to change course.
“Democrats have struggled with voters because they were not connecting with working voters and often did not even speak the same language they did,” he said. “Every time a voter saw the they/them ad — as every college football fan in the country did repeatedly — they were reminded of this.”
“The memo shows the new DNC chairman gets that on some level, but one memo is not a problem solved,” Heye added, “especially given the struggle Democrats will have to pull themselves away from the hard left on those issues.”
Even so, Democrats see an opportunity to brand Trump and the GOP as the party of the uber-rich against themselves as the party of working people.
Martin’s first trip as DNC chairman will include stops in Pennsylvania, Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri to target labor. He is calling on his party to focus less on Washington, D.C., where it already dominates locally, to reach the problems that matter to voters in the rest of the country.
Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told the Washington Examiner last week that Democrats would “continue to talk about important issues that are at the kitchen table for so many Americans: price of eggs, gas, groceries, rising rents.”
“Those are the concerns that the American public have, and none of the policies that Donald Trump is rolling out will do anything to address those,” he said.
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For a party that has seen its fortunes increasingly tied to the votes of white-collar workers with college degrees, the long pivot back to its working-class roots has begun.
“Trump and his billionaire backers are hellbent on attacking working families and dismantling the unions that protect workers in order to enrich themselves,” Martin wrote. “As Democrats, it is our responsibility to stand up for working people and unite behind the kitchen table issues that connect us all.”
