Political strategist David Axelrod argued Thursday that Democrats are becoming a “smarty-pants, suburban, college-educated party” that could keep losing electorally if it does not change course.
“You can’t approach working people like missionaries and say, ‘We’re here to help you become more like us.’ There’s a kind of unspoken disdain, unintended disdain in that,” Axelrod, a CNN contributor, said in an interview with the outlet.
The longtime Democratic strategist praised President Biden for doing some “good things for working people,” but stated that the party as a whole “has increasingly become a smarty-pants, suburban, college-educated party and it lends itself to the kind of backlash that we’ve seen.”
His comments on CNN’s “AC360” came a day after the 2024 White House race was called for President-elect Trump. The GOP nominee won all seven battleground states and made electoral gains among several demographics and in blue-leaning states.
After Vice President Harris’s loss, Democrats started pointing fingers at who or what was to blame for the upset. Axelrod weighed in on the defeat alongside CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
“I do have concerns about the way the Democratic Party relates to working-class voters in this country,” Axelrod told Cooper. “The only group that Democrats gained within the election on Tuesday was White college graduates, and among working-class voters, there was a significant decline.”
“I do have concerns about the way the Democratic Party relates to working-class voters in this country,” he added. “The only group that Democrats gained within the election on Tuesday was white college graduates. And among working-class voters, there was a significant decline.”
Axelrod, who served as a senior adviser to former President Obama, said the party only won among those who make more than a hundred thousand dollars a year and warned that “you can’t win national elections that way, and it certainly shouldn’t be that way for a party that fashions itself as the party of working people.”
The strategist also seemingly agreed with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy’s evaluation of the Democratic Party, saying in an interview earlier on CNN that blue-collar workers and other similar voters “feel like they are thought of as less and that their priorities are not the priorities of the Democratic Party.”
The party has received a slew of backlash following the election results, including from some within its own ranks. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent lawmaker who caucuses with Democrats, heavily critiqued the party after Republicans flipped the upper chamber, accusing it of abandoning the working class. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) claimed the defeat was due to the public’s perception of the party in relation to the “far left” members.
Others, like Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, snapped back, saying that Biden was the “most-pro worker president of my lifetime.” He called Sanders’ criticism “straight up BS.”
