Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum stressed the importance of appealing to working class voters in a speech before the Iowa Freedom Summit Saturday.
Santorum, a one-time presidential candidate who is reportedly mulling another bid in 2016, said the GOP message often fails to resonate with American workers.
“We need to be the party of the worker,” he said.
The two-term senator pointed to the fact that less than 10 percent of workers own businesses as evidence that Republicans need to expand their policies beyond those that seem most attractive to business owners, not their employees.
Santorum reminded the Des Moines audience of his surprise victory in the 2012 Iowa caucuses during the GOP primary that year.
“You made a good decision, by the way,” he joked.
The Pennsylvania Republican tied his criticisms of immigration policy to the plight of working-class voters, echoing concerns about the future of immigration laws that resurfaced in nearly every speech Saturday.
“We need to stand for an immigration policy that puts Americans first and American workers first,” he said.
But Santorum broke from the conservative pack by highlighting flaws with legal immigration, not just those who remain undocumented.
“There are fewer Americans who were born in America working in this country than in 2000,” he said, noting the spike in legal immigration that has created fierce competition in some industries. “It’s affecting American workers.”
