Breaking
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says his own party let working Americans down. In an interview on MS NOW on Saturday, Sanders was asked what Democrats did wrong to lose working-class voters to President Donald Trump. According to Fox News Digital, he answered “that the Democratic Party failed working-class people on economic issues.” He added, “They lost faith in the Democratic Party, and not unjustifiably.”
Sanders made the admission 16 days before the November 3 midterm elections, as Democrats make their closing pitch to the same voters he says they let down. “In terms of working-class issues, no, I don’t think they’ve done a good job,” Sanders said. Sanders is the most prominent independent in the Senate and caucuses with Democrats, and he has long been one of the party’s most influential voices on economic policy.
Details & Background
Sanders said Democrats spent years promising to help working-class voters but did not deliver. He pointed to trade policy as a major failure. “Democrats pushed through terrible trade deals, which cost us millions of good-paying manufacturing jobs,” he said. Sanders credited his party with progress on civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights and the environment. He has criticized the party before, especially after Trump’s 2024 victory. In a written statement, he warned that “a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
The 2024 election results support his point. A Fox News Voter Analysis found that Trump beat Kamala Harris 53% to 45% among voters earning $50,000 to $99,999, while Harris won voters earning $100,000 or more, 53% to 46%. Trump won voters who said they were falling behind financially by 29 points. About 40% of voters said inflation was the most important factor in their vote, and those voters backed Trump by nearly two to one.
Reactions
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who also appeared on the MS NOW special, defended Sanders’ focus on working-class issues and corporate lobbying. “I think that this has allowed the salience of class to really emerge in our politics,” she said. Her comments signaled that the party’s progressive wing sees class and economics, not just cultural issues, as the path back to the voters Democrats lost to Trump.
Republicans seized on the admission. Natalie Baldassarre, national press secretary for the Republican National Committee, told Fox News Digital that Democrats “can no longer claim to be the working class party.” She accused Democrats of abandoning working families in favor of their “far-left base.” Republicans have spent the 2026 campaign arguing that the GOP is now the party of working Americans, and Sanders’ comments give that argument fresh support from an unlikely source.
Why This Matters to You
Jobs, wages, trade and the cost of living are the issues that hit working families hardest. Sanders is admitting that his own side failed on those issues for years, including trade deals that he says cost Americans millions of manufacturing jobs. The Trump administration has made trade enforcement and bringing manufacturing back to the United States central to its economic agenda, and voters will judge both parties on whether paychecks keep up with prices. For families still feeling the squeeze of higher costs, the question is simple: which party will actually deliver?
When one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent figures says working-class voters lost faith in it, and “not unjustifiably,” voters should take notice. Control of Congress will be decided in just over two weeks, and the party that wins working families could hold power for years to come. Sanders’ words confirm what the 2024 results already showed: the political map of America has shifted, and the working class is no longer anyone’s guaranteed vote.
