“Our best path to being able to defend vulnerable people and take on righteous, but maybe not yet popular causes, is to win the votes of the overwhelming number of working people and to be known as the party of the everyday person, first,” Casar said in an interview in his congressional office. “I believe that progressives need to make sure that we are connecting our causes to the broadest base of people possible.”
To win again, Democrats must “make sure that the central brand speaks to everyone,” Casar said.
Casar, along with Reps. Chris Deluzio (D-Penn.) and Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), have been meeting informally with about a dozen Democratic members to talk about how best to shift the party into emphasizing economic populism, according to two people familiar with the meetings granted anonymity to discuss the private sessions.
It’s a group that draws from all parts of the Democratic Party because there are “plenty of members, who might wear different ideological hats, but are already” centering economic populism, “so I want this to be more the glue that holds the Democratic party together,” Deluzio said. Several members of the group — at times called the “New Economic Patriots,” though Deluzio said there’s no formal name yet — spoke on the House floor to preview their ideas around “strident” economic populism this week.
Deluzio, who represents a swing district in western Pennsylvania, cast Casar as “strategic and smart” about how he’s positioning progressives.
“[Casar] knows that there are parts of the caucus that he now leads that are widely popular, and we should be fighting on that terrain,” Deluzio said in an interview. “We’re doing things to grow the party and deliver for the people — not getting into circular firing squads.”
Their effort comes amid something of a revival for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Two left-wing champions, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, drew massive crowds at recent rallies in Nevada, Arizona and Colorado. And Casar, who joined Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez for a rally in Tucson, is on a media blitz of his own, including with conservative-leaning audiences.
On Fox News last week, Casar told viewers that even if they disagree with him on social issues, “we can agree that Republican members of Congress have no business going along with Elon Musk slashing Social Security.” And he’s expected to make the same pitch to voters in GOP Rep. Chip Roy’s district in Texas, where he’s hosting a town hall on Saturday.
In his interview with POLITICO, Casar argued that Democrats haven’t been willing to be confrontational enough — especially compared to President Donald Trump. He said Trump and Republicans have turned transgender rights into “an animating, top issue,” by telling a “story, villainizing an LGBTQ American who played volleyball,” citing Trump’s remarks in his congressional address this month about a high school player injured by a volleyball spike from a transgender person on the opposing team.
“Republican officials have figured out how to elevate social issues that impact only a small number of people and make them the dominant issues in elections,” Casar said. But after “knocking on thousands of doors” in Texas, even the most conservative voters “never opened the door and said, ‘Thank God you’re here. I want to talk to you about the appropriate level of testosterone for somebody to compete in the NCAA [sports].”
But Democrats should take some inspiration from it, he said. “Progressives need to help the Democratic Party do with Social Security what Republicans have done with queer issues,” Casar said, which means telling a clear, compelling story. Right now, Casar said, Democrats will only “say, ‘I protect Social Security,’” an issue that should be “a killer message” because “90 percent of people agree with you,” but “the voters don’t hear it.”
Casar didn’t call for Democrats to change their position on transgender rights, after California Gov. Gavin Newsom split with the party on the issue of transgender athletes in female college and youth sports. Rather, he urged Democrats to accuse Republicans of using social issues to distract voters from economic ones.
“There are some cultural issues that we’re going to confront that not everyone is going to agree on, but what are the core things we agree on? Everyone ought to make a living wage, everyone should have health care, ending poverty. Instead, we get into a conversation about bathrooms,” said Mark Longabaugh, a longtime strategist for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. “I think the party’s got to refocus itself on what we are, really, at our core.”
Like many other Democrats, Casar views Musk, a polarizing figure with underwater favorability ratings, as a ripe target for that kind of storytelling. He’s drilled into Musk at rallies, on TV and on the House floor. He hammered Musk for earning $8 million a day off of government contracts during a congressional hearing, a clip of which went viral on X and earned more than 11 million views.
“If we’re willing to say, as Democrats are finally seeming much more willing to say in this building, today, than just even a few weeks ago, the richest people on the planet want to steal your Social Security check in order to enrich themselves and their friends, well, now you’re cooking with gas,” Casar said. “Be willing to be interesting. Be willing to explain that — to win a voter’s trust by telling people we are willing to actually go up against the villains that are screwing them over.”
It’s a strategy — embracing explicitly populist messaging and using slogans like “Fight Oligarchy” — that’s resisted by some more moderate Democrats. Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left group Third Way, said that “demanding economic populism is its own form of purity test.”
“There’s a lot of different approaches to the economy that can appeal to working class voters, that involve honoring hard work, ensuring that everybody has an opportunity to earn a good life and that doesn’t involve ‘fighting the oligarchs,” Bennett said. “If that becomes their litmus test, then we’re right back in the same boat.”
Casar, the son of Mexican immigrants, got his start in politics through labor organizing, including on construction sites. By 25, he was elected to the Austin City Council, where he was one of the most progressive members in a deep-blue city, fighting against encampment bans for homeless people. In 2022, he won a contested Democratic primary, with the backing of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, to represent a district that stretches from East Austin to San Antonio.
Some progressives see Casar as part of the “next generation of working class representation,” as Chuck Rocha, a Democratic consultant who worked on Sanders’ presidential campaigns, put it. He said Casar doesn’t come off as “a college professor in a sweater and horn-rimmed glasses,” but “is rooted in the working class.”
“If Democrats have to spend all their time having to talk about why we shouldn’t deport dangerous criminals, if boys should play in girls sports or whatever the social issue of the day Republicans are forcing us to talk about, then we’re not talking about what is driving Americans, which is survival, bringing down costs,” Rocha said. “We’ve let Donald Trump steal some of our progressive mantle, and Greg is trying to pull it back.”
