"Affordability" isn't a magic word!
Five Risks Democratic Candidates Have to Avoid
It’s hard to find a political analysis of the 2026 electoral landscape without affordability taking center stage. It’s cited as the reason Zohran Mamdani will soon be Mayor of New York. It’s the key to Democratic victories in New Jersey and Virginia – and the driving dynamic behind a potential 2026 blue wave.
We’re told failure to grasp and address affordability is emerging as Donald Trump’s Achilles’ Heel – finally an everyday reality in peoples’ lives that Trump can’t bluster his way past.
None of this commentary is wrong-headed as far as it goes. But that’s the problem. It doesn’t go far enough.
I’ve been around Democratic politics long enough to see the core of a good messaging strategy fall apart due to premature victory laps or faulty execution.
We can’t let that happen this time. So let’s look at five ways Democratic candidates’ focus on “affordability” can go off the rails – and how to avoid that happening.
Risk #1: Falling in love with the word.
I grew up in a struggling working class family. And I promise you this. I never saw my parents sitting at the kitchen table, a stack of unpaid bills in front of them, saying “What are we going to do this week about our family affordability crisis?” Democratic candidates and party leaders won’t connect if they talk about cost of living issues in language far removed from that used by their audience.
Takeaways
Drop the Wonk: Phrases like “the affordability issue” and “my affordability agenda” and “I’m campaigning on affordability” are wonky policyspeak and expose an inauthentic grasp of how people talk about and experience cost of living concerns.
Get down to specifics: Move from the generic umbrella term to peoples’ lived experience – rising grocery bills, paying the electric bill, housing costs, trouble making ends meet, living one setback away from disaster.
Remember the aspirational: It’s not just about staying above water week to week. It’s about getting ahead, hard work paying off, and regaining hope that your kids will have a better life than you do.
RISK #2: Making it all about Trump.
Are Democrats centered on cost of living issues because they’re really committed to helping struggling families? Or have they just latched onto the issue because it looks like the best way to take on Trump?
Working class swing voters have a really good radar for telling one from the other.
Trump’s sinking poll numbers on the economy and cost of living are a big part of the 2026 story. So is his stumbling search for a response. One day he’s “the affordability President.” The next day affordability is a “Democratic hoax.”
But swing working class voters aren’t looking for Democrats obsessed with scoring points against Trump. They’re angry that partisan political combat is the focus instead of politicians actually doing something about the struggles they’re facing.
Takeaways
Don’t make it another Trump referendum. One thing candidates running everywhere can take away from Mamdani is his focus on peoples’ lives. “Zorhan Mamdani is running for mayor to make life affordable for working class New Yorkers.”
Tell people what you’re going to do. Don’t focus your campaign on the gap between Trump’s campaign-long focus on lowering the cost of living and his utter disregard for the issue in 2025. Spend more time talking specifics about what you’re going to do to solve the problem.
Focus less on how opponent sided with Trump and more on how they failed to lift a finger to address the economic challenges the people they represent are struggling with.
RISK #3: Clueless elite messengers.
The Democratic consulting class has devoted a lot of 2025 attention to the disconnect with working class voters. Too often they sound like anthropologists
trying to figure out a curious remote population they’ve stumbled across.
It’s going to take more than buying a Carhartt work shirt, swearing a few times and talking about what a “fighter” you are to win over voters whom both Democrats and Republicans have been screwing over for decades.
Takeaways
Don’t fake it. It’s really powerful when a working class candidate is able to speak from personal experience about the economic challenges people are going through. It’s really pitiful when an Ivy League millionaire tries to force the same kind of connection.
Be a storyteller. Whatever a candidate’s personal background, it’s always possible to seek out and share personal stories of people struggling with cost of living challenges. Share them – not in a brief name check way, but with telling details and heartfelt emotion.
Make it visceral. Last year, Kamala Harris spoke about access to abortion by sharing personal stories in an emotionally powerful way. You could tell she got it deep down in her gut.
But when she turned to economic issues, all the emotion and hearfelt connection disappeared, replaced with policy speak and muted energy. 2026 candidates discussing issues like inflation and rising health care costs can’t make the same mistake.
RISK #4: Sitting on our current lead on the cost of living.
You can already feel a dangerous “problem solved” attitude taking hold in some Democratic circles. It’s as if we’ve found the magic key to 2026 messaging and all we have to do from here is ride it to victory next November.
Winning campaigns gain a strategic foothold and do everything in their power to strengthen, deepen and amplify their advantage. Losing campaigns sit on their lead and try to avoid risk, fingers crossed that nothing will disrupt their advantage.
Takeaways
Build a narrative arc. Both Democratic entities and individual campaigns should be planning a cost of living narrative that plays out over time in 2026. Shift emphasis from groceries to health care to housing. Make big announcements of proactive Democratic initiatives.
Don’t play it safe. Surprise people. Launch wave after wave featuring new angles of vision. Take risks to get attention. And most of all, don’t count on a static narrative to hold its power for 11 more months.
Keep the GOP back on their heels. Seize on every misstep, every stupid comment a Republican utters. Make them the party of billionaire tax cuts and golden ballrooms. Use Newsom-style trolling to mock every effort they make to recover.
RISK #5: Getting undermined by the weak Democratic brand.
Poll after poll shows Trump further under water on the economy and cost of living. But the same surveys indicate little faith in the Democratic party as a trusted alternative.
Especially among working class voters, “We’re the Democratic party and we’re here to help you” isn’t a winning 2026 proposition. Even if we know exactly what to say and have strong ideas to propose, we just haven’t earned the trust to be believed.
Takeaways
Earn peoples’ trust, don’t assume it. We don’t have the standing to say “Just give us the ball, we’ve got this.” Recognize the hole Democrats have dug for themselves over time. Acknowledge that people have reasons to doubt whether we have a genuine commitment.
Offer ideas with immediate impact. One of the weaknesses of the 2024 Democratic message was leaning into economic initiatives that offered a years-away payoff. People are looking for immediate help and practical ideas they can quickly grasp.
Consider running against the brand. It only works for some candidates. But new young candidates and working class ones shouldn’t hesitate to position themselves as leaders ready, willing and able to lead the party in a new, future-facing direction.
Conclusion
Can Democrats win the 2026 elections – and will affordability be a big part of the reason? It’s certainly a strong possibility. But it’s far from a guarantee. We can make it more likely by thinking of the current moment not as a locked-in point of advantage, but the very start of an all-out effort to make ia compelling case.
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