The Democrats' Elite Progressive Staffer Problem

Elite, progressive college graduates can hijack the party's message and make it harder to win the middle.

It’s that time of year again — or, better yet, that time in the cycle — for Democratic campaigns to staff up for the next wave of elections.

Prior to taking the plunge into politics in my home state of South Carolina a decade ago, joining the ranks of political staffers felt like a trip to the moon. There were acronyms and jargon to learn, everyone seemed smarter and more politically in tune than I was, and it all moved really quickly.

I figured it out, but like all apprenticeships, it wasn’t without a learning curve. 

Now that thousands of Democratic staffers are on the prowl again, it’s time for a flurry of “some personal news” tweets (and maybe Threads) with these announcements. Skilled political practitioners jumping from campaign to campaign makes for exciting news, but the incestuous nature of the Democratic ecosystem can create a vacuum that keeps our campaigns from truly infiltrating the American electorate.

There's nothing wrong with a sense of camaraderie — I know firsthand that there is a special bond between those who devote so much of their labor and love to the challenges of the campaign trail. I, too, chuckle at the memes likening comms, digital, and fundraising staff to popular culture. But as someone who has always lived and worked outside of the Beltway, I recognize how that sense of community can keep us from being able to relate to the communities we seek votes from.

As a Southerner, Democrat, and a Black person, it often feels like these identities can co-exist but don't fully blend — similar to how oil and water can share the same space but don't mix. I’ve learned through my interactions with voters in South Carolina, Texas, and Ohio that regular voters live lives that are very different from those who are calling the shots on campaigns and in DC — no matter how great the candidate may be.

My observation isn’t just anecdotal.

In their report titled “Ivy League Democrats and State School Republicans,” Daniel Kreiss and Adam Saffer find that a whopping 20% of all hiring on Democratic campaigns come out of seven elite schools:

Harvard (5% of Democratic hiring), Stanford (3%), NYU (3%), UC Berkeley (3%), Georgetown (2%), Columbia (2%), and Yale (2%).”

Meanwhile, the GOP hires from a broader range of educational backgrounds, especially state schools:

The top three Republican schools are state public institutions: University of Texas, Austin (3%), Ohio State University (2%), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1%).

Democratic staffers are more likely to come from ultra-elite schools than their Republican counterparts.

Democratic campaign workers from prestigious Ivy League schools not only often come from wealthier and more connected backgrounds than most voters, but they also tend to have different political beliefs. As Democratic data guru David Shor noted in a Fall 2021 interview with Politico, “young party staffers are far to the left of the median Democratic voter on relatively uncontroversial, bread-and-butter Democratic priorities.” Case in point with issues like “Defund the Police,” where the views of many progressives diverge sharply from the rest of the electorate, especially among Black, Latino, and working class voters.

Being a well-educated progressive is not the issue. The problem arises when campaign staff, who are crucial in the fight for democracy, let their uncompromisingly progressive orientations get in the way of their ability to connect with and win over critical voters in the middle. Many progressives have mistakenly allowed their preferences to get in the way of how a candidate speaks to voters and about issues. Let’s all begin to realize that true “wokeness” is waking up to the reality that no one outside of DC talks about the issues that way.

As former Florida Rep. Stephanie Murphy says of her Democratic colleagues, “when we talk, we tend to talk in faculty-room-speak as opposed to factory-floor-speak.” This creates an obvious problem when it comes to winning the hearts and minds of people from beyond the elite, coastal bubble.

Further, our friends at Third Way recently released a report detailing college vs non-college Americans. Aptly titled, “Worlds Apart,” it exhibits just how different not only Democratic staff (who are largely college-educated) can be from the average American, but how their day-to-day lives differ: little to no retirement savings, few assets to attribute to wealth, often denied lines of credit, paid hourly, aren’t working for a variety of reasons… and the list goes on. Aside from perhaps organizing staff who may align more with non-college Americans (and are also often people of color), those calling the shots on campaigns have largely inverse life experiences from most voters.

Just this week, a Black moderate in the Georgia state legislature announced her switch to the GOP, naming “harassment and intimidation from Democrats since she broke with the party on votes for private school vouchers and prosecutor oversight.” WTF are we doing (to paraphrase my co-founder, Liam) when a Black woman in tune with moderate ideology and temperament is pushed to a party responsible for an attack on the U.S. Capitol?

Ushering the Democratic professional class back into “Team Normal,” is imperative if we want to run and win as Democrats in 2024 and beyond. 

Using the language a voter at a high school football game, grocery store, gas station or Golden Corral would use to describe something or relay a message — even if it isn’t perfectly aligned with our own personal views — is what we must do to win the middle and save our democracy. We can stop trying to portray our intellect or impose our personal perspectives on voters and simply engage them with empathy and openness on the issues they care about. Some call this approach to politics “popularism,” while others simply call it meeting voters where they stand — or “democracy.”

Last cycle, many voters felt as though they had to choose between an authoritarian Republican Party and an out-of-touch Democratic Party that didn’t appear to speak their language or share their values. We lost the national popular vote while only narrowly winning more seats than predicted.

As former Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan put it, the state of the Democratic brand is so toxic in many places right now that people are “asking themselves whether they want to vote for the fascist or vote for the Democrat — and they have to actually think about it!”

With democracy, the rule of law, and the future of the nation on the line, I think it’s safe to say we can sacrifice some of our personal preferences and progressive puritanism to be more empathetic and welcoming toward the voters we need to be a truly big-tent Democratic Party.

Lauren Harper is co-founder of WelcomePAC and The Welcome Party, which work to strengthen a coherent, strong and welcoming Democratic Party faction that engages the middle and protects democracy. She previously served as South Carolina state director for Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign and as policy and communications advisor for former Columbia, S.C., Mayor Steve Benjamin.

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