Working-class whites may be rejecting Democrats’ economic policies because they see them as reckless and immoral.

A large segment of support for the Republican Party is made up of white, working class voters, a group which would likely benefit more from the redistributive measures advocated by the Democratic Party. In new research, Kieran Bezila, with collaborators Monica Prasad and Steve Hoffman, investigates this seeming contradiction, by looking at the economic dimension of moral and cultural appeals. He argues that pragmatic economic concerns are important to working-class voters, concerns which translate to a dislike of redistributive policies advocated by the Democratic Party which they see as “spendthrift” and imprudent.