Published on: July 8, 2025 at 3:58 pm
Leading up to the 2024 U.S. election, Democratic candidates needed to do a better job of keeping their fingers on the pulse of American voters and taking their concerns about jobs and the high cost of living seriously, rather than insisting on painting a rosy picture of the economy, according to Academy of Management Scholar Tim Pollock of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Pollock noted a disconnect between Democratic politicians’ messages and what swing voters wanted to hear.
“People are saying, ‘I’m upset about this. This is what I see in my daily life,’ and Democrats talked at a more general, abstract level, saying, ‘It’s really not that bad because of this, that, and the other thing,’ and voters think, ‘Yeah, that’s nice, but that’s not my reality,’” Pollock said. “And so if you really want to influence somebody, especially when they’re having a really strong, visceral, negative emotional response, you have to try to understand where they’re coming from, acknowledge their pain, and talk about where they’re at.
“Even if you can’t come up with a perfect solution or what you’re proposing isn’t going to really be feasible, people are going to feel better if they think they’re acknowledged and recognized,” he said. “That’s similar to what we founding the research study we did about social-media influencers, who are effective at talking about people, saying ‘you’ not ‘me,’ using language that conveys an understanding of where their audience is coming from, and talking to them about their issues—that’s what people want.
“They want to feel seen and heard.”
