James Carville’s motto, “It’s the economy, stupid,” is dominating this year’s electoral cycle. It shouldn’t be.

We just did one of the largest survey experiments of its kind and identified a path that increases Democrats’ working-class support by 10.9 points while simultaneously increasing support from Democrats’ college-educated base by nearly 8 points. Gains like those could ensure not just a blue wave in 2026 but a sustainable Democratic majority that could deliver in 2028 and beyond.

The key is to connect with working-class values that will sound distinctly unchic to Democrats’ college-educated base: pride in hard work, loyalty to community and country, personal security, respect for traditional institutions and playing by the rules. Connecting progressive goals with these values increases working-class support on seven issues ranging from abortion and LGBTQ+ rights to climate change by as much as 30 points, we found in a study released in July.

Our new survey put more than 40,000 Americans in a virtual voting booth, where they evaluated nearly 800,000 hypothetical Democratic and Republican candidates. Because partisanship determines around 80% of election outcomes, this approach made our experiment far more realistic than most surveys. Several clear directives emerged.

Democrats gain most when they adopt culture and climate policies that resonate with values of working-class voters, whom we define as Americans without a four-year college degree who fall in the middle 50% of household incomes. This often is more effective than what most candidates are doing this cycle: remaining silent. Instead, the key is to shift both messaging and focus. For example, “Abolish ICE” wins only 47% working-class support, but advocating ”a path to citizenship for immigrants who have held jobs, paid taxes, and stayed out of trouble” drives up working-class support to 70%. Why the difference? “Abolish ICE” triggers working-class worries about personal safety, while the “path to citizenship” resonates with working-class values of hard work and playing by the rules.

This doesn’t mean that Democrats always need to move toward the center, we found, confirming prior research by David Broockman and Joshua Kalla. What costs support are not progressive policies in general but a few specific policies that are unpopular because they conflict with working-class values: “abolish ICE,” “defund the police,” “ban assault rifles” and allowing trans girls on girls’ sports teams. Other progressive social policies resonate just as well as moderate ones when they resonate with working-class values.

The next step is to embrace specific, named, working-class values. For example, a candidate could say, “We should take care of our own communities and country first.” To this, candidates should add that they’ll listen more to “working-class people” or “people from all walks of life.” Note well: not “the middle class,” which is what Democrats typically say.

The next ingredient is populist rhetoric that decries a rigged system where hard work no longer pays off in a stable life. Calling out the wealthy and political elites who rig the rules is fine and even necessary, but the most effective messages don’t make the villains the center of the story. Instead they focus on how the system is rigged and working people pay the price, not on attacking the rich. After all, to paraphrase John Steinbeck, many working-class people see themselves as “temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

This formula works far better than scouring the country to find some rando in a Carhartt to run for office. That’s not to say class background doesn’t matter at all. We found that candidates from elite backgrounds, like corporate executives and lawyers, don’t appeal as much to working-class voters as candidates from any nonelite background, such as small business owners or middle-school teachers.

This brings us back to economics. Connecting with working-class values requires prioritizing economics over defense of democracy or any other issue: If you’re a blue-collar family worried about putting food on the table, or a farmer paying $1,000 at the gas station, resisting authoritarianism is a low priority (19th out of 30) while economics is your top concern.

It’s also important to recognize that “affordability” means something different to different groups. While liberal college grads focus solely on prices, working-class people also focus intensely on raising wages, creating jobs and economic opportunity.

In other words, economics is important — we’ll grant Carville that — but getting economics right once again requires the cultural competence to connect with working-class values. And economics isn’t everything. Not close: It accounted for just under 3 of the nearly 11-point gain we found possible. Noneconomic factors accounted for 8 points.

So maybe the party’s guiding slogan this season ought to be: It’s the culture, stupid. Why? In politics, people vote for people like them, who like them. So it’s good that Democrats have learned to stop scolding working-class voters. Now they need to learn how to connect culturally with voters they need.

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Joan C. Williams is director of the Equality Action Center at UC Law San Francisco and the author of “Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back.” Jared Abbott is the director of the Center for Working-Class Politics.

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