Democratic National Committee rolls out 'Trump at One Year' strategy

— -- Eager to capitalize on a political environment that looks more and more favorable, national Democrats Tuesday unveiled their political strategy as President Trump nears one year in the White House.

“Trump At One Year: President For the 1 Percent” is the first in a series of strategy memos the Democratic National Committee (DNC) says it plans to roll out that “will explore the defining themes of Trump’s first year in office." .

The bulk of the Democratic strategy is focused on discrediting President Trump’s economic message--painting his first year as a boon for the wealthiest Americans.

“Every step of the way they have put the interest of the one percent ahead of the interests of workers,” DNC Chair Tom Perez told reporters. “This is what it's all about in year one of Trump. Yes there is change, but it is change that is hurting workers.”

Senators Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., both seen as potential contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, joined Perez for the plan's rollout.

Both Gillibrand and Warren emphasized healthcare-- the issue that helped Republicans regain control of the House in 2010 during the debate over Obamacare-- as a prime example of President Trump’s first-year failures.

“We saw the disaster that was Trumpcare, which would have hit people in their 50's and 60's really hard,” Gillibrand said, referring to the bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act that last year passed the House but stalled in the Senate.

Warren, seen by many as the leading candidate of the progressive wing of the party, said Democrats need to focus on working-class voters if they want to win political victories in the Trump era.

“During the first year of the Trump presidency, Donald Trump has broken one promise to workers after another,” Warren said. “We need to fight back against the Trump-Republican anti-worker agenda. We need to defend basic protections for workers, and we need to go further.”

The push from Democrats comes as President Trump’s approval rating remains mired in the mid-to-low 30s, and the party looks to take back both the House and Senate in the 2018 midterms.

Democrats need to flip 24 House seats in order to retake the House--in Republican hands since 2011-- and many of those seats are represent suburban, highly-educated districts where Democrats hope they can mount a successful counter-narrative to Trump on the economy.

Republicans are holding on to a slim 51-49 majority in the U.S. Senate, but Democrats face the daunting task of defending 24 incumbent-held seats, while Republicans need to defend only eight.

Perez, buoyed by recent Democratic wins in Virginia, New Jersey and Alabama, was optimistic his party is in good position to add victories as the Trump enters his second year.

“We're organizing to win from the school board to the Oval Office because economic inequality is the defining issue of our time,” Perez said. “We're fighting for workers to make sure they have a fair shake, and we've seen in one year of this administration that they are doing the opposite.