A number of progressive lawmakers are heading out on a multistate listening tour focused on affordability and voters’ concerns about the rising cost of living.

Way to Win, a Democratic donor network and strategy organization, is launching its “Affordability Listening Tour” in partnership with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The tour will hold events in battleground states, including Nevada, Texas and Arizona, with the first stop set for Saturday in Las Vegas.

Reps. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona and Steven Horsford of Nevada will lead the Las Vegas kickoff, holding discussions with roughly 100 voters about the financial pressures bearing down on their households. Additional sessions in May are planned in Houston and Phoenix, with other CPC members expected to participate.

The sessions will focus on the cost of essentials — housing, food, health care, gas and utilities — and solicit input on what attendees want Congress to do about it.

Economic anxiety has become a dominant force in American politics, with each party trying to figure out its message to voters. After President Donald Trump and Republicans’ success in the November 2024 elections, Democrats have reckoned with their messaging issues in the hopes of being able to win in the 2026 midterms.

“The cost of things, everything from housing to health care to child care to utilities to groceries, are going up after this administration promised that on day one, they were going to pass policies to bring them down,” Horsford told NOTUS. “This is not about one party or partisanship. This is about the pocketbook issues that matter to the people that we represent.”

But now with the unpopular Iran war, rising gas and grocery prices, and other issues Trump’s administration is grappling with, Republicans too are struggling with how they talk about the economy.

Ansari, whose district covers parts of the Phoenix metro area, pointed to health care, child care and housing as costs that have become increasingly out of reach for her constituents, alongside everyday expenses like gas and groceries.

“At the end of the day, it’s really about making sure that government works for people. So I think it is really important that we’re hearing from a diversity of perspectives and a diversity of cities, but also rural communities,” Ansari told NOTUS. “It’s helpful to understand which pieces in particular are weighing the heaviest on people’s everyday lives.”

Trump campaigned on the cost-of-living backlash toward then-President Joe Biden’s administration among voters who had watched grocery bills, rent and gas prices surge post-pandemic. Trump had a simple, relentless message: that he had presided over cheaper prices during his first term, and Vice President Kamala Harris would not bring costs down.

Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Way to Win, said that with the midterms around the corner and the next presidential election in 2028, Democrats need to find their own message to drill down on.

“It’s a process to go talk to people and listen and take the feedback, and then use that to work with policy experts to then say, ‘OK, we’ve talked to people, we’ve heard them, and this is what we actually want to accomplish,’” she told NOTUS.

Following the three-city tour, Way to Win plans to publish a report outlining policy recommendations for lawmakers to address the affordability crisis.

“The goal is really to build the progressive affordability agenda,” Ansari said. “Determine what are the bills, and also the big-picture policies that we want, we would potentially want a 2028 presidential contender to run on that we think would be the most impactful to address the affordability crisis.”