There was some debate after the election last year about whether it was, or was not, a “wipeout.” I argue that regardless of whether it was or wasn’t, Democrats must behave as if it was. If the party is to have any chance of recovering, it must mount an appropriately sized response that acknowledges—both in messaging and in policy—the dissatisfaction and disadvantages working people in this country are facing.

I am considering several factors when I say this. It is true that, as the incumbent party, the Democrats were at a disadvantage against a backdrop where incumbents across the world lost their seats. And indeed, the party’s losses were consistent and stark: Initial analysis showed that over 89 percent of counties in the United States shifted to the right; Democrats lost every major battleground state at the presidential level; and Donald Trump’s vote margin improved across every single state in the country, according to The New York Times. However, the dynamics we saw in this election were not new. Between 2012 and 2020, Democrats’ margin of support among non-college voters of color fell by almost 20 points, which is a seismic shift. Note: During that same period, white non-college voters also shifted to the GOP, but their levels of support for Republicans were already higher than those of other demographic groups. Bottom line: These shifts happened. They were large. They’re not new. And Democrats must respond appropriately if they want to regain ground.

The “bright” spot is that I do not believe the shifts we saw were evidence of a permanent realignment. Somos PAC—the organization I serve as president, which runs some of the largest independent Latino voter engagement programs in the country—had more than 300,000 conversations with voters this election cycle, and this is what we learned: The 2024 election was about the economy, and it was a referendum on people’s economic reality in the here and now. Note that I wrote “people’s economic reality,” not “how people feel about the economy,” as this idea is often framed. As though what people are feeling is not real. As though working people in this country may feel like their economic situation is challenging, yet the economy is strong.

In analyses of what happened last year, we are often hesitant to criticize the economy given the historic economic investments made by the Biden-Harris Administration and the country’s robust recovery from the COVID pandemic. But we put ourselves at a disadvantage by ignoring what working people are telling us. Multiple things can be true at the same time. It is true that the Administration helped manage a strong recovery and passed historic economic legislation that prioritized the needs of working people. It is also true that working people did not feel either of those things sufficiently in their everyday lives, and they told us this loudly and persistently.

Since the election, an illustrative moment continues to cross my mind. When the first Economic Impact Payments—or “Trump checks,” as they soon came to be called—were sent out during the pandemic, my dad received a paper check for $1,200 in the mail. When he cashed it, he later recounted, “I started shaking as they counted it out. This is the most money I’ve ever had in my hand at one time.” Two things on that: First, the rush of emotions (relief, surprise, elation) that my dad felt that day was an incredibly real and memorable experience and evidence of the severe financial strain he had been living under for so long. Second, it was not an experience unique to my father. In a country where the middle class has been steadily shrinking, such an experience is also not exclusive to non-college voters anymore—not when the average teacher’s starting salary is $44,000 a year. Many working people can relate to my dad’s emotions that day.

And if our response to that is to say, “If those people then voted for Donald Trump, they sold out for a check, and I hope their family gets deported or they lose their health care,” or whatever unhelpful narrative has been making the rounds, then we’re part of the problem. It means we are still not listening to what working people in this country are telling us or trying to understand the absolute economic hopelessness people are feeling. Unless you have laid in bed and wondered whether you will be able to make this month’s rent, or have had to figure out how to feed your family or pay for a necessary doctor’s appointment or life-saving medication, you cannot understand what it feels like to live under the constant weight of economic despair. The reality is that many people did not vote for Trump—they voted for change, for something different from what they were experiencing. Because living paycheck to paycheck, struggling with crushing debt, drowning in health-care or child-care costs, and always being one medical emergency away from bankruptcy is not sustainable.

If we truly believe that working people are the backbone of our economy and the heroes of our American economic story, then the fact that our policies have left working people behind to the point where the relief my dad felt that day led to such an intense physical and emotional reaction is absolutely unacceptable. It leaves people susceptible to politicians like Trump. We can choose to minimize people’s economic anxiety by posting memes about the price of eggs, or we can recognize that this election was never about the price of eggs; it was about the size, scale, and impact of our economic policies and our economic vision for the future, or lack thereof. In the coming weeks and months, we will hear a great deal about needing to “moderate” ourselves—in fact, much of that rhetoric has already seeped into conversations. That view runs exactly contrary to what working people across this country are telling us they need.

The reality is that people need us to go bigger—to lay out a sweeping economic vision for the future. One that improves their day-to-day lives and allows them to build in the now and plan for what comes next. In the conversations that Somos PAC had with voters in 2024, it was clear that working people in this country were not only anxious about their current economic state, but also could not envision a path forward for their economic future. We heard from people who couldn’t afford their medications, people who were waiting to start a family because they “couldn’t afford to have a baby,” and people who were sure they would never be able to buy a home of their own. The unfortunate truth is that the economic policy tradeoffs we have made in the past have often come at the expense of working people. I have wondered many times whether we lost the 2024 election the day Democrats ceded ground and allowed the family care provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act to be cut. Those provisions would have immediately, materially, and substantially improved people’s everyday economic lives. The strategy here should not be to go smaller, but to go bigger and be bolder. We have to stop asking people to play a game of inches when they are telling us they need a Hail Mary.

While it may be hard to understand people’s trust in Trump on the economy, the harsh reality is that Trump proved to people during the pandemic that he would prioritize the economy above literally everything else—for better or worse. The further we get from the carnage of the pandemic, the easier it is to romanticize the actions taken to keep the economy open, especially when your everyday needs are not being met, no matter how hard you work. Ultimately, if people’s basic economic needs are not being met—not only the essentials, such as housing and food, but also the ability to spend time with loved ones, take vacations, and dream about things such as owning a home and retirement—then little else matters. The Trump campaign recognized this and effectively leaned in on the economy.

At the same time, the Trump campaign managed to weaponize issues such as immigration and trans rights to create a zero-sum “other” dynamic. They established the idea that if the government is focused on someone else, then it is not focused on you—and that is why you are hurting economically. The Winning Jobs Narrative Project, an almost four-year economic research project dedicated to figuring out how to better connect with working people across this country, has devoted extensive resources to this topic. Their findings convey that often in economic arguments on issues such as immigration, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or the child tax credit, people’s mindsets descend into a dynamic of “Why them? Why not me? Why is that person over there getting help and I’m not?” The project found that this dynamic is much less about “Why them?” and much more about “Why not me?”—meaning that when people feel like their economic needs are being prioritized and met, the “Why not me?” concern goes away, and “Why them?” becomes less important. Because our economic policies have not effectively addressed their needs, people were susceptible to the “Why them?” wedge the Trump campaign created.

So what can be done? As we learn from the losses, we must learn from the wins as well. Across the major races in battleground states this year, Senate and House Republicans often underperformed compared to Trump. Republicans should not assume the shifts and gains of 2024 will be sustained for all Republican candidates going forward, especially when Trump is not at the top of their ballot. This lesson was clear in 2022, and again in 2024. Democrats must seize on this opportunity in 2026. They must also look carefully at how some Democratic campaigns managed to buck the unfavorable trends last year. In Arizona, Senator Ruben Gallego overperformed Democratic presidential margins and was slightly ahead of President Biden’s 2020 support levels. He was authentic, his economic story resonated with people, and he talked about policies that highlighted people’s economic realities. There are lessons to be learned here.

On the presidential level, Kamala Harris leaned in on a broader, bolder economic message on topics ranging from the overall economy to homeownership and small businesses. Importantly, she also offered a vision for the future. In fact, the final New York Times/Siena poll released prior to the election showed that Harris had closed much of the gap on economic issues. But in the end it was not sufficient, likely due to voters’ lack of confidence that Democrats would actually deliver on these promises. We must fix that, and we can, but only if Democrats respond with the urgency that this moment demands.

Moving forward, Democrats must do two things. One: They must lead with a sweeping economic vision for the future that is backed by action and investment in communicating that vision. It is what people need and what Democrats must deliver. Democrats can and will win, but only if they are willing to take action, run the programs, and invest in the states while carrying a bold economic message. Organizations with local experience can point the way here—not only in states where heavy outreach and communication investments were made last year, like Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin, but in neglected states like Florida and Texas. And two, Democrats must ensure voters are acutely aware of how the Trump-Vance Administration’s policies are affecting their everyday economic lives as those policies are rolled out in the coming weeks, months, and years.

Bottom line: Working people in this country are the heroes of our economic story. It’s time we started aggressively pursuing policies that substantially, immediately, and materially make their lives better. Go bigger. Not smaller. How Democrats respond to this defeat can lead them toward the kind of bold actions that are not only necessary but will determine whether the political shifts that led to their 2024 losses become a permanent realignment or not. It can mean the difference between a working dad holding in his hand the most money he’s ever held at one time, or nothing at all.