I posted this statement from the Working Families Party on Facebook eleven years ago today (2014). It's still relevant.

Maybe even more than ever. But then last night's election results suggest the Dems are finally waking up.

Wise words from the Working Families Party:
Well, that was pretty bad. And then some. Over the next few weeks, pundits will analyze the results and offer advice to the Democratic Party.
Here’s mine: Unless and until Democrats are seen as actually improving people’s lives, the path is open for Republicans to stoke fears about declining living standards and stoke white anxiety about a racially changing America.
By contrast, where Democrats made issues like raising the minimum wage central to their campaign, they won.
In Connecticut, Governor Dan Malloy won narrowly by showcasing his actual record: raising the minimum wage and passing paid sick days for workers. Connecticut was the first state to pass the two landmark laws. The Connecticut Working Families Party and allies made both happen.
Democrat Tom Wolf walloped Republican Governor Corbett with a campaign focused on raising the minimum wage and increasing education funding, both big priorities of Pennsylvania Working Families. Republicans took the state capitol, but past is prelude -- the last time Pennsylvania raised the wage was with a Democratic Governor and a Republican controlled legislature.
The lesson: Addressing income inequality by lifting up the economic standard for working class voters is good policy and good politics.
Even in states where Republicans won Senate seats, voters took matters into their own hands and voted to raise the minimum wage. Ballot initiatives passed in Arkansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Alaska. In Illinois and several Wisconsin cities and counties, voters passed non-binding referendums, telling their state government even as it lingers in Republican hands -- voters want a raise.
What energizes working and middle-class voters are not lackluster candidates who avoid telling the truth because they don’t want to seem anti-business. It’s the Elizabeth Warrens, the Bill de Blasio’s -- the ones who shout: The game is rigged, and its rigged against us. We need to fix it by lifting up workers and changing policies to work for people, not banks and big business.