The rise of the economic populist: What voters want from both parties this year

A new kind of economic populism is surging in both parties this year as voters search for a political party that can solve growing concerns about financial stability. Right-wing populism in the U.S. once meant being against the socially liberal elites on the East Coast and in California. On the left, populism used to mean being against billionaires and big corporations.

But in this midterm election, those definitions are getting scrambled and a new kind of economic populism may be converging from the left and the right. NPR's senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson has this report. MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: You'd be forgiven if you thought the following ads were run by Democrats.

FRENCH HILL: Keep Wall Street from buying up our neighborhoods. MIKE ROGERS: The pharmaceutical companies are ripping American families off. JOE MITCHELL: Because politicians shouldn't get rich while Iowa families struggle to afford groceries, housing and childcare.

LIASSON: They sound like they were written by Bernie Sanders' media consultant, but French Hill, Mike Rogers and Joe Mitchell are all Republicans. Historians of populism, like Georgetown professor Michael Kazin, say Americans are more open to economic populism when they're feeling squeezed or worse. MICHAEL KAZIN: Economic populism emerges when ordinary people believe that they're getting screwed, betrayed by economic elites.

LIASSON: This year's populism is bipartisan. It's why you see Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders appear back-to-back at the same anti-AI conference, and it's reflected in poll after poll. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake surveyed 500 working-class Americans without college degrees and with incomes under $150,000.

The poll was commissioned by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which is affiliated with the German Social Democratic Party. CELINDA LAKE: What really surprises us is the number of people - about 40% - who are cynical about the American dream don't think it's possible anymore and are sarcastic about it, that it's gone. LIASSON: A false promise that if you worked hard and got an education, you could do as well or better than your parents.