The poor vote Democrat, the poor an white vote Republican. Democrats are the not-(as-)racist party, they're the party that isn't actively trying to make life worse for anyone who isn't white. They don't have to do a thing to address working class interests as such and they'd still get the votes they get by as least not being actively hostile. Admittedly, I'm more familiar with the politics of the South, since I live here. But the churches pretty much are the politics on the ground here. They're where the civil rights movement organized, and they're where the right organizes. In the town my father comes from the only place you'll meet a concentration of democrats is the Freemasons of all things, and as much as the conspiracy nuts would like to believe otherwise, they're more about charity than politics.