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These Working-Class Populists Are Struggling to Win Over the Working Class

And more insights from the second edition of our Economic Populist Tracker.

Rebecca Cooke, Bob Brooks, Dan Osborn, and Brian Poindexter.

So far, the 2026 midterm elections are shaping up to be a Democratic wave. That’s obviously great for the party. But an election in which anyone with a “D” next to their name stands a good chance of winning doesn’t tell us all that much about which kinds of campaigns are best at reaching the working-class voters Democrats need to secure durable national majorities, rather than more fleeting ones that, like a wave, can recede as quickly as they appear.

Over the past decade, the party has steadily lost ground with working-class voters, and a growing number of commentators have argued that the way to win them back is to run working-class candidates on an economic populist message. We at the Center for Working-Class Politics, in partnership with The Nation and Nira Data, have been trying to test this question on the 2026 campaign trail. That’s why, last month, we launched the Economic Populist Tracker, in which we follow four working-class populist candidates running this year in places Donald Trump won in 2024—Dan Osborn, an independent running for Senate in Nebraska, and three House candidates, Brian Poindexter in Ohio’s Seventh Congressional District, Bob Brooks in Pennsylvania’s seventh, and Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin’s third.

While three of the four candidates we’re tracking hold slim leads over their Republican opponents, in a wave year victories alone may not tell us much about whether the candidates’ working-class, economic populist appeals made any difference. Instead, we have to look at whether these candidates do better than a generic Democrat would in their districts.

Two months into our tracking, the answer is mixed. Cooke and Osborn (who, though he is technically rejecting the Democratic Party label, is running with the Nebraska Democratic Party’s support) are running a few points ahead of the Democratic Party, Poindexter is even, and Brooks is slightly behind. The two who are running ahead of the party label are doing it mainly thanks to their support among independents and Democrats—plus, in Osborn’s case, a small number of Republicans. Ironically, though, their edge over the party does not come from working-class voters: None of the four is yet doing measurably better than the party among voters without a college degree in households earning less than $100,000.

In our September survey, Osborn trailed GOP incumbent Pete Ricketts among likely voters by eight and a half points, compared with 10 points in August. Poindexter led Max Miller by five points (down from six in August), Brooks led Ryan Mackenzie by two points (up from one in August), and Cooke held a slight edge over Derrick Van Orden by two points (down from six in August). None of these figures changed by more than the margin of error.

But steady overall numbers can mask changes that may matter in the home stretch. Here is a brief look at how each race has developed.

Ohio’s seventh district. Poindexter still leads, but Republican voters are rallying to Miller, who was initially damaged by abuse accusations from his ex-wife (accusations he denies). Miller responded to his own scandal by dredging up a 1998 incident in which Poindexter, then 18, was arrested but never charged, and he seems to have won back some of his base. In September, more of the district’s Trump voters called Poindexter “too extreme” compared with other Democrats (27 percent, up from 13), and Miller’s support among Trump voters rose from 44 to 54 percent, mostly as undecided Trump voters came off the fence. Poindexter’s own support among Trump voters held steady at about 10 percent, and his overall lead remains essentially unchanged. But 44 percent of the seventh’s undecided likely voters are Republicans, while 23 percent are Democrats and 13 percent are independents. As the district’s Republican-leaning undecideds make up their minds, Poindexter’s lead could narrow to well within the margin of error.

Nebraska. Ricketts spent September portraying Osborn as a Democrat in disguise, calling him “Democrat Dan” about 40 times at their September 1 debate. The attacks, along with leaked recordings in which Osborn appeared to contradict his stated position on immigration and mocked a small-town Trump supporter, appear to have hurt Osborn’s standing........

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