Around the world, center-left parties in government and in opposition are facing the challenge of radical right-wing parties. Each party needs a cross-class coalition, but it is working-class voters with whom the parties need to reconnect with to win sustainable majorities again.
PPI’s project on Center-Left Renewal, launched in 2023, has been conducting research with working-class voters to inform the strategies of center-left parties. This slide deck is a summary of the research presented at the September 2025 Las Vegas retreat of PPI’s ‘New Directions for Democrats’ series. It builds on research with working-class voters in the US, UK, Germany and Australia conducted in 2024 and 2025, featured in PPI’s recent publication ‘Build Back Belief’ by Deborah Mattinson, Claire Ainsley, and Tom Brookes.
The research highlights the main challenges and opportunities facing Democrats in the Autumn of 2025.
