It’s a Party of the People — but which party?
My interview with Patrick Ruffini about the emergent multicultural, populist coalition that’s been shifting to the right.
I’ve had a couple of weeks to think about my recent conversation with
’s Patrick Ruffini, co-founder of conservative polling firm Echelon Insights, and author of Party of the People.You can check it out here on our YouTube channel:
And here’s what I’m mulling over:
The essential argument of the book is that there is an emergent coalition of working class voters, including voters of color, alongside other non-college voters who he describes as broadly being more economically liberal (wanting higher wages, worker protections, and a social safety net), while being more socially conservative (more “family values”, more religious, less comfortable with abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, DEI, etc.). This emergent coalition appears to be tilting towards Republican candidates over the last few cycles, in part due to the populist impulses of Trump and the MAGA movement.
There is evidence to support this conclusion — we do perceive shifts towards Trump in particular among Black men, Hispanic voters, and non-college voters of all ages. Young men seem to be part of this mix, increasingly, and of course that worries a lot of people who have long believed in various narratives of demographic destiny. You have your pick:
as America becomes “majority minority” sometime in the next 20 years or so (or later, as immigration is stifled), it will become more liberal.
as each new youth generation joins the electorate they will continue to shift leftwards, starting out and staying more liberal.
Look, as Patrick noted, there are literally books called The Emerging Republican Majority and The Emerging Democratic Majority, and neither one of them turned out to be right.1
Here’s what I wish we could all do: stop fretting over destinies and scouring data for signs and portents. Nothing is written; everything is possible. Sure, some things are more probable, and turning the probable into the actual takes, you know, work. But…
You can divert a river.
Let’s suppose I’m right, and that the parties absolutely can stop trying to predict the future, and focus on trying to create it instead. This shift in focus puts the parties in competition over different visions of the future, each wanting to divert the river to their own valleys. One party has already started to blow up dams. The other … oh hell, I don’t know what they’re doing.
Anyway.
What does this populist, emergent coalition look like when Democrats stop stressing out about it, and instead think of it as something that the parties could equally compete for?
Echelon asked an extremely interesting question in 2019 that Patrick references in his book:
“Suppose the Democratic and Republican Parties were replaced by a new set of political parties. Which of these parties would you be most likely to support? A party that would…
Stop illegal immigration, put America first, stand up to political correctness, and end unfair trade deals.
Defend the American system of free enterprise, promote traditional family values, and ensure a strong military.
Advance social progress including women’s rights and LGBTQ rights, work with other countries through free trade and diplomacy, cut the deficit, and reform capitalism with sensible regulation.
Put the middle class first, pass universal health insurance, strengthen labor unions, and raise taxes on the wealthy to support programs for those less well off.
Pass a Green New Deal to build a carbon-free economy with jobs for all, break up big corporations, end systemic inequality, and promote social and economy justice.
Now, we can quibble over the descriptions (in fact, if you have suggestions for phrasing that would preserve clarity but remove polarizing/partisan-coded language, please let me know in the comments).
But let’s pause here and ask yourself: which party sounds best to you?2
The group with the largest vote share in Echelon’s research back in 2019 was the Labor party — the one focused on the middle class, universal health insurance, strong unions, and taxing the wealthy — with 28% of the total vote share.
The Conservative Party — the one focused on free enterprise, family values, and a strong military — that came in second with 21% of the vote share.
The Nationalists were a close follower with 19%.
And the Acela and Green parties came in with 12% and 10% respectively.
Now, in a Parliamentary system, the Labor party would have to make a coalition with someone. Who should it be?
Left v. Right is Probably Wrong
In our current Left-Right politics, we’d assume that the Republican Party would be a coalition between the Nationalists and the Conservatives, which would net them a combined 40% of the vote — not enough to take our imaginary Parliament.
Meanwhile, the assumed Democratic coalition, the one the Democrats think they have, would combine Labor with the Acela Party and the Greens. That would net them 50% of the vote.3
In Patrick’s analysis, this reveals the challenge for Democrats. At 50%, they have to persuade some fence sitters, and they have to hold all or most of their “natural” coalition together to get a real majority.
And what he’s seeing in the data — what we’ve all been seeing in the data — is that some folks who would otherwise be in the Labor party have been voting for the Nationalist candidate, or not voting at all.
And that’s because in our system, unlike in a multi-party, parliamentary democracy, the Labor Party they’ve defined here is not the dominant faction of the actual Democratic party — the Acela Party is. And they only have 12% support.
Let’s look at Republican voters.
Now, those who identify as Republican are still right-wing. In Echelon’s study, 75% of Republican voters chose the right-leaning parties, Conservative and Nationalist (and they were about evenly split between them). Of the remaining parties, the most popular for Republican voters was actually the Labor party, garnering about 11% of the Republican vote.4 We should expect to continue seeing the MAGA-populist candidates do well among Republican voters in primaries, but if a Labor-oriented party could peel away a few of those Labor-inclined Republicans, it would be a game changer for Democrats.
What about those Independents?
Among self-described Independents, the Labor Party was the most popular, with 30% support. Thirty-six percent of Independents were inclined to support a combination of the right-leaning parties. Fourteen percent of them were unsure, the mark of a true independent. Twelve percent supported the Acela party, and 9% supported the Greens.
And the Democrats?
Among Democrats, Labor runs away with it — they’re twice as popular at 42% support as the Acela party (20%) and a little more than twice as popular as the Greens (17%). They can pick which flank they’d prefer to make common cause with, but before we assume it’s better to pick the slightly better performing Acela party, it might be useful to understand how Labor performs with the voter groups that make up this emerging, populist, multicultural coalition.
Labor Could Work
Black Voters:
33% of Black voters would support the Labor party
24% would support right-wing parties (this is about in line with what Black voters 18-54, especially Black men, said in exit polling)
18% aren’t sure5
14% would support the Acela Party
11% would support the Greens.
There’s not much difference between a Labor/Greens alliance and a Labor/Acela alliance for total vote share.
Hispanic Voters:
36% of of Hispanic voters prefer the Labor party
17% support the Greens party
Acela and the right wing parties get 12% support, each
Put together a Labor/Green coalition, and you’ll get 53% of the Hispanic vote, five points more than a Labor/Acela coalition.
Non-college White Voters:
29% support the Labor party
25% support the nationalist party
22% support the Conservative Party
Greens get 7% support
The Acela party gets 6% support.
A Labor/Green coalition does just as well as a Labor/Acela coalition among these voters; not enough to win them, but still: 36% of the non-college white vote.6
Gen Z Voters:
36% of Gen Z voters prefer Labor
25% prefer conservatives
21% prefer Greens
13% prefer Acela
10% are unsure
8% prefer nationalists.
Pair up a Labor/Green alliance, and you’ve got 57% of Gen Z voters.
How do you count to 51?
So there are some questions we have to ask ourselves here.
If, taken together, the left leaning parties would have a larger vote share than the right leaning parties, why does Trump win (when he’s up against incumbent Democrats who also happen to be women)?
And if the center of support among left-leaning voters is a Labor left, why is the Acela party the mainstream of the Democratic Party? And if you really do need the Greens to win, why would you punch left?
It’s an odd strategic choice to say that your party lost its election because of an anti-incumbent, populist mood in most parts of the world, and then defend the status quo, prioritize elites, and take offense at challenging incumbents.
It’s especially odd to do so when, at least as Patrick’s book would tell it, it’s a populist coalition made up of demographic segments that used to be seen as safely in the Democrats’ camp.
Maybe we have to start with what “populism” even is. It’s a politics of the “common people” versus the “elites”. Who is “common” and who is “elite” is contested. But fundamentally, populism opposes business as usual. The Acela Party and the Conservative Party, in Echelon’s framing, are preservationist, stay-the-course parties. They assume there is something essentially good worth keeping, and they focus on that. For the Conservative party it’s free enterprise, the military, and family values; for the Acelas it’s free trade, diplomacy, “sensible reform”, and a rights framework that simply needs to be extended to more demographic groups, preferably through the Supreme Court.
To someone who feels like free enterprise and free trade have caused their communities and families real hardship; or who doesn’t agree that the status quo system has done enough for “people like them”7, then neither of those parties have something to offer.
But if you like populism, why would you choose Nationalism over Labor?
Revenge v. Renewal
The Nationalist party takes its populist path through a kind of retributive posture. It knows what it’s against. No more immigration, no more political correctness, no more “unfair trade deals”, and ferchrissakes “put America First”. If you’re feeling hard done by, there is a narrative that describes toppling a status quo that slid away from the beaux idéal of America, and then putting everything back in its right place. You don’t have to be terribly imaginative to understand why people would believe this would result in a better deal for American workers and consumers (especially the white and male ones). It is at its core a nostalgia for an imagined past, which is always a reactionary, pessimistic perspective. Put another way, it’s a revenge fantasy.
The Labor Party as described by Echelon, on the other hand, adopts an investment posture. It’s explicit about who it’s supporting: the middle class, union workers, those less well off, the uninsured. There’s an implicit “enemy”: the wealthy, who aren’t paying enough in tax and have been getting too much attention in the status quo. There is some implied nostalgia here — for a time when labor unions were stronger and the middle class was looked after, and (IYKYK) a time when wealthier people paid more taxes. But it’s not a platform of restoration or return. It implies “things will get better”, which is more active, more optimistic in its perspective. Instead of revenge, it’s more focused on renewal.
As I look at Patrick’s analysis, I can plainly see why the MAGA movement resonates with enough of the voters who might otherwise be drawn to a Labor, social Democrat style of party. I can see why that feels like a good strategy for Republicans to invest in. Also, it’s great fun to make Democrats freak out about their demographic coalition slipping away, if your a Republican strategist.
But I can also see how the Democratic Party could reform itself to put that same populist impulse (with 90% less revenge) at the center of its policies and platforms. In many ways, it is core to the American Dream that race, age, education, geography and gender aren’t destiny — but never having enough to get by, much less get ahead, forces a destiny upon you. It doesn’t seem like recentering the party around a Labor-style platform should be such a hard sell.
And yet, I keep hearing about “good billionaires”.
Solidarity
Here’s the pitch: What if Democrats put together a solidarity movement instead of a basket-o’-groups, highly contingent coalition?
Many people on the far right and the majority of people with left politics share a perspective that sees a couple of groups as truly problematic: the ultra-wealthy and corporations chasing low and no-wage workforces. That’s where the horseshoe meets. There is literally no point in trying to win racists who vote for racism. But you can win populists who want a fairer economic system.
As I look at Patrick’s data and analysis, it looks to me less like this multicultural coalition is another destiny narrative, and more like we’re in a moment that could be the arena for a real contest, because this emergent coalition seems to me to be up for grabs.
The Democrats need not lose the competition for these voters.
But you gotta play to win.
Here’s the episode — Patrick and I probably don’t agree about most things politically, but both his book and our conversation were worth my time, and I hope listening to the episode is worth yours:
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Resources
‘Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP’
Book by Patrick Ruffini that explores how Trump built a durable coalition including increasing numbers of working-class voters across racial lines, contradicting predictions about an "emerging Democratic majority" and showing how these voting patterns proved strong enough to win the 2024 election.
Polling firm co-founded by Ruffini that combines traditional research methods with digital analytics to understand political realignments and voter coalition dynamics across educational and cultural divides.
Ruffini's newsletter analyzing political trends, particularly focusing on the realignment of working-class voters of diverse backgrounds toward the Republican party and the cultural dimensions driving this shift.
Growth and Opportunity Project Report
Post-2012 election Republican assessment recommending moderation on immigration policy to appeal to Hispanic voters, reflecting the pre-Trump establishment's strategy that was later upended by Trump's success with working-class voters.
David Shor's Diploma Divide Hypothesis
Theory explaining how educational attainment has become the primary political divide in America, representing deeper cultural differences beyond income that shape political behavior and community values.
Bartels' research mapping issue-based preferences against party preference, revealing many Americans hold mixed ideological views rather than consistent left-right positions, with more culturally moderate Democrats than culturally moderate Republicans.
What if the US Were a Multi-Party Democracy?
Echelon's recurring study showing how Americans would distribute in a five-party system, revealing the Trump nationalist faction overtaking traditional conservatism while the labor-left remains the Democratic party's largest faction despite elite focus on smaller progressive and neoliberal factions.
Our Guest
Patrick Ruffini is a founding partner at Echelon Insights, one of the most widely recognized public opinion and strategic research firms in the United States.
Patrick is the author of ‘Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP,’ called “the book that predicted the 2024 election” by The New York Times and ranked as a Best Book in Politics by the Wall Street Journal.
An expert in political realignment and demographic trends, Patrick is a prolific speaker, writer, and political commentator. He has offered on-air analysis, including on election nights, for CNBC, Fox News, the BBC, and NPR and written for The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time, The Atlantic, and Politico, among others.
Patrick has led hundreds of strategic communications, survey, data analytics, and focus group projects for Fortune 500 companies, leading foundations and advocacy groups, and political campaigns nationally and internationally.
Since Patrick co-founded Echelon Insights in 2014, the firm has been known for its innovative approach and accurate track record. It was ranked one of the three most accurate private polling firms in the country by 538 and is one of the most-awarded polling and data firms in the country by the American Association of Political Consultants and Campaigns & Elections.
Before starting Echelon Insights, Patrick led one of the country’s premier digital strategy and communications firms, Engage, and served in senior roles at the Republican National Committee and for President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign.
Patrick is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and lives with his family in the Washington, D.C. suburbs.
I have them both, and at some point I’ll read them both and turn it into CONTENT.
Because I’m curious about who reads this, tell me which party you like best in the comments (and if you have a name for your party).
We have 10% who I guess didn’t care for any of these parties, and selected “unsure”.
In the last election, one tactic was to try to peel off Conservative voters; perhaps a stronger tactic was to hold on to the Labor voters who didn’t feel Democrats were populist enough.
This is reflective of something I want to get into more, and that’s how the right/left political definitions may be less well established among voters of color than they are among white voters.
According to CES data, among non-college white voters, those with a HS diploma or less were 32.5% for Democrats; those with some college were 41% for Democrats. The two data sets are absolutely not apples-to-apples, but it suggests that Democrats would be no worse off among these voters if they shifted to a Labor/Green alliance from an Acela-dominant party.
“People like them” are mostly but not exclusively defined as people who live off of paychecks and tips, not interest, dividends, and capital gains; people who don’t have student loans to pay off but are still saddled in consumer, mortgage, car, or medical debt; people who live nowhere near a future high-speed rail line; people who don’t have a NIMBY-ism problem but live in a place where REITs own all the rental stock and bought up houses during the Great Recession, so housing prices have gone up even without the influence of environmental impact reports. Listen, times are tough all over. Except where they’re not.