The working class moved right. Will it stay there?

Republicans won the working class in 2024. With the midterm elections approaching, they are discovering that winning those voters may have been easier than keeping them. Recent polling found a sharp decline in Donald Trump’s standing among independents without college degrees, with the cost of living driving much of the dissatisfaction. The coalition that returned Republicans to power is not disappearing, but it is becoming less secure.

Working Americans did not move right because they suddenly developed an interest in corporate tax policy or the abstract efficiencies of global markets. They moved because the institutions governing the country had become hostile to their interests, dismissive of their values and increasingly incapable of delivering a stable life. They wanted secure borders, public order, decent wages, affordable homes and schools that would educate their children without undermining their authority as parents. Now they are waiting to see what Republican control will deliver.

The scale of the opportunity remains extraordinary. Voters without college degrees favored Trump by 14 points in 2024, while voters with four-year degrees favored Kamala Harris by 16 points. Younger voters moved toward Trump, and Republicans gained among working-class Hispanic voters who had supported Democrats for generations. Pew Research Center documents a political dividing line increasingly defined by education, class and the institutions that shape American life. But an electoral realignment becomes durable only when voters see their priorities translated into government.

The inherited Republican agenda addresses only part of that demand. Lower taxes, lighter regulation and restrained spending remain important elements of a healthy economy. They cannot carry the entire weight of a working-class political program. A family earning $70,000 does not experience economic freedom as a marginal change in its tax rate when housing, health care, energy and education remain beyond reach. Economic liberty means little when ordinary citizens lack the financial independence required to exercise it.

Housing makes the failure impossible to ignore. Median prices for new and existing homes now exceed $400,000. Existing-home prices have risen 54 percent since 2020 and stand at nearly five times median household income. According to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, a household needs income above $120,000 to afford the monthly payment on a median-priced home. That threshold excludes much of the coalition Republicans claim to represent.

The pressure reaches beyond real estate. Nearly half of Americans between 18 and 29 received help from someone outside their household to pay an expense in 2025. A Federal Reserve survey found that 58 percent of adults believed rising prices had made their financial situation worse. Fewer than one-quarter of Americans between 25 and 34 have moved out, found work, married and had children, compared with 45 percent in 1975. Economic insecurity increasingly determines whether young adults reach the milestones of family formation.

A party built around working Americans must judge economic policy by whether it expands their ability to own property, support a family and exercise meaningful control over their lives. That means permitting more housing while resisting the conversion of starter homes into permanent investment vehicles for large financial firms. It means rewarding domestic production, strengthening critical supply chains and expecting companies that receive public support to invest in American workers. Immigration policy must account for wages, housing capacity and the costs imposed on citizens with the least political influence.

Family policy belongs at the center of this program. Tax relief should recognize the cost of raising children. Health care reform should reduce the power of insurers, hospital systems and pharmaceutical intermediaries that profit from complexity. Education policy should restore parental authority and create credible alternatives to a university system that burdens young adults with debt before they own a productive asset. Energy policy should value abundance and affordability because every increase in electricity, transportation and heating costs lands hardest on households with the narrowest margins.

Delivering that agenda will require Republicans to confront interests that have long operated comfortably within the party. Corporations seeking cheaper labor, financial institutions accumulating residential property and industries protected by regulatory complexity will resist a politics that places national well-being ahead of their preferred business models. A working-class party cannot allow every policy question to be settled by the donor class. Its legitimacy depends on producing tangible gains for the people who supplied its votes.

Those voters may have little appetite for returning to a Democratic Party dominated by progressive institutions. Republicans should not mistake that reluctance for permanent loyalty. Disappointed voters can stay home, withhold support or search for another political vehicle. The immediate danger is electoral, but the larger test is whether the GOP understands what its new coalition requires.

Republicans can become the durable political home of Americans who work, build, raise families and want their country to remain recognizably their own. Cultural respect matters. Border enforcement matters. National pride matters. But those commitments must be joined to an economic program that allows citizens to acquire property, form families and pass something valuable to their children.

The working class moved right in 2024. Whether it stays there in 2026—and beyond—depends on what Republicans do with the power those voters gave them.