Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP)

Background

The Center for Working-Class Politics is a research institute that promotes socialist principles and advocates that the Democratic Party embrace a socialist, class-based electoral strategy to gain control of the government.  ¹ It was founded to promote the position that “progressives can only achieve their political aims by winning a larger share of support from working-class voters.” ¹

As of 2026, Jared Abbott was the director of CWCP and an assistant professor of political science at California State University, Los Angeles. ³ He is a former national political committee member of the Democratic Socialists of America, a role to which he was elected in 2013 while a graduate student at Harvard University. ^{4  5  6}

Other CWCP board members at that time included Philadelphia-area Teamsters Local 623 official Dustin “Dino” Guastella, State University of New York (SUNY)-Albany political science assistant professor Katie Rader, Jacobin contributing editor Matt Karp, and Bhaskar Sunkara, who was the founder and publisher of Jacobin and president of The Nation magazine.  ⁴

Research

The Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP) has published research that promoted the electoral power of a “working-class coalition” and has encouraged Democratic candidates and organizations to embrace an economically populist, class-based political strategy similar to the models of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and the Democratic Socialists of America. ⁷

During the 2024 presidential election, Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP) researchers advocated for then-Vice President Kamala Harris (D) to embrace a campaign strategy that used economic populism to win the support of working-class voters, warning that then-former President Donald Trump’s populist messaging was eroding traditional Democratic support among blue-collar workers. ⁸

A September 2025 report from CWCP produced in partnership with YouGov, Jacobin, the Labor Institute, and the Labor Education Action Research Network at Rutgers University blamed Democratic candidates’ electoral struggles in Midwestern “Rust Belt” states on their unwillingness to embrace economic populism in the style of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).  ⁹

Connection to Jacobin

The Center for Working-Class Politics is closely associated with the explicitly Marxist publication Jacobin, with which it has held joint events and co-published research.  ² Jacobin editor and publisher Bhaskar Sunkara and contributing editor Matt Karp were both members of CWCP’s board of directors.  ⁴

CWCP’s first-ever research report, “Commonsense  Solidarity: How a working-class coalition can be built, and maintained,” was published in 2021 as a joint project of Jacobin, CWCP, and polling firm YouGov. ¹⁰

At a joint CWCP-Jacobin event in October 2025, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain called for a nationwide mass strike on May 1, 2028. ²

Financials

Since 2021, the Center for Working-Class Politics has filed an e-postcard tax return, reporting gross receipts under $50,000. ¹¹