Democrats are still looking for answers to their dramatic losses in the 2024 general election, hoping that as the 2026 midterms approach, the party can bring back voters who abandoned the coalition during the Trump era. But so far, this group has a clear message: just because we have misgivings about Trump, it doesn't mean we like you again.
In a recent report from The New York Times, dozens of working class former Democrats who supported President Joe Biden in 2020 but then either backed Trump in 2024 or skipped the contest altogether, detailed how the Democrats lost their support, providing answers as to how the party's traditional coalition has eroded in the Trump era.
That was the case of Raymond Teachey, an aircraft mechanic from Bucks County, Pa. Despite usually voting for Democrats, by fall of 2024 he was rethinking his political allegiances. To him, the Democratic Party seemed increasingly focused on issues of identity at the expenses of more tangible day-to-day concerns, such as public safety or the economy.
"Some of them turned their back on their base," Teachey said.
Another working class voter, Desmond Smith, a deli worker from Smithdale, Miss., said he grew disillusioned by what he saw as the party's overemphasis on identity politics and concerned about unlawful immigration. Hence, he voted for Trump.
"I think I'm done with the Democrats," he told The Times. Asked how the party could win him back, he said, "fight for Americans instead of fighting for everybody else."
Other interviewees cited different reasons for their eventual departure. For Kyle Bielski, an executive chef at a private club, the Democrats' nomination of President Biden despite his clear physical decline, was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Bielski recalls how instantly after he dropped out, Democrats urged voters to unite behind the candidacy of Kamala Harris, which did not sit right with him. His distrust for Democrats dates back to the pandemic, when they pushed lockdowns to not spread COVID-19.
Harris, he said, "wasn't someone that I got to vote for in a primary."
"It almost seemed wrong," he continued. "It was kind of like, ok, the same people that were just running the country are now telling us that this is the person that we should vote for."
An in-depth post-election study from Pew Research Center suggests that about 5% of Biden's voters in 2020 switched to Trump in 2024, while roughly 15% of those voters stayed home last year. Trump retained more of his 2020 voters than Biden did, a crucial factor in winning the election, The New York Times explains.
Polling on the current attitudes of those Biden defectors is limited, but it is clear the Democratic brand, broadly, continues to struggle. A Wall Street Journal poll released in late July found that the party's image was at its lowest point in more than three decades, with just 33% of voters saying they held a favorable view of Democrats.
"They're doing nothing to move their own numbers because they don't have an economic message," said John Anzalone, a veteran Democratic pollster who worked on that survey.
"They think that this is about Trump's numbers getting worse," he added. "They need to worry about their numbers."
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