Message to Democrats: Fight the Villains, Defend the Dream, Anti-Woke is Broke

Democrats’ first- and third-most preferred messages use “fight” language, while the second-most calls for a “laser-focus on making life affordable” and specifically proposes expansion of the social safety net (+17).

February 5, 2026

A year into the second Trump administration, the Democratic Party has yet to provide a clear articulation of what it stands for besides opposing Trump. What is the party’s purpose? What is it offering? What is its vision for government and the country going forward? How does it get beyond reactionary opposition to Trump’s latest outrage, and command attention itself?

Some Democratic leaders have tried to provide answers. To assess which messages resonate, Blueprint tested abbreviated statements from ten prominent Democrats offering competing visions for the party’s future.

Using a MaxDiff analysis—where respondents choose between pairs of options—we measured which frames voters prefer. Scores above zero indicate an option was preferred more often than average, while scores below zero (shown as negative numbers) indicate it was preferred less often than average

Key Findings

“Fight” language stands out. The top-two most-preferred messages, among voters overall as well as independents, both lead with fighting language: a call to imagine a Democrat Party that “fights—really fights—for all of us” (+14 overall; +14 independents) and a push to make “the fight to restore the American Dream the heart of our party” (+12 overall; +13 independents).

Anti-woke is broke. An attack on “performative woke politics” is the second-least preferred message among voters overall (-11) and independents (-7), and the worst performing among Democrats (-33).

Name the enemy. Two messages invoke the American Dream, with very different results. One that calls out corporations and concentrated power as villains is among the most-preferred (+12), while another encouraging plain language like “get rich” but naming no antagonist is among the least-preferred by voters overall and independents (-16), and even more so by Democrats (-33).

Democrats: Democrats’ first- and third-most preferred messages use “fight” language, while the second-most calls for a “laser-focus on making life affordable” and specifically proposes expansion of the social safety net (+17). A sweeping vision of “government that is every bit as ambitious as our adversaries” (+12) also ranks near the top. Meanwhile, a message centered on calling out “oligarchy” performs better with Democrats (+3) than it does with independents (-4) or voters overall (-6).

Independents: Similar to voters overall, messages envisioning a Democratic Party that “fights—really fights—for all of us” ( +14 independents) and makes “the fight to restore the American Dream the heart of our party” (+13) are the most preferred by independents. A “laser-focus on making life affordable” (+5), a “government that is every bit as ambitious as our adversaries”(+4), and an assertion that the “Democratic Party can’t be wedded to the old ways or the status quo” (+3) see above-average results.

ABOUT THE POLL

Blueprint surveyed an online sample of 2,572 likely voters on December 5, 2025, weighted to gender, age, race, education, income, and 2024 presidential vote choice. The survey was conducted in English, and its margin of error is ±2.2 percentage points.

PRESS CONTACTS

Alyssa Cass
alyssa@slingshotstrat.com
347-992-5006

Evan Roth Smith
evan@slingshotstrat.com
646-240-0096