From the industrial Midwest to Colorado’s Pueblo County, the message this year from blue collar voters could not have been clearer: Donald Trump gets it, Democrats don’t.

But at the Democratic National Committee’s executive meeting in Denver on Saturday, a pollster offered an alternate explanation for what happened Nov. 8: blue collar workers didn’t cost Hillary Clinton the election — Millennials did.

“She won the Obama coalition, but she won by smaller margins, due in no small part to young voters casting protest votes,” said Cornell Belcher, president of Brilliant Corners Research and Strategies.

“I would not have thought that we’d have young voters standing in line to cast protest votes. I was wrong.”

Inside the Democratic Party, a battle is roiling for the future of the party: double-down on the party’s roots and try to rebuild its blue collar base? Or embrace a different demographic entirely: college-educated Millennials.

This weekend’s summit in Denver comes as party leaders are jockeying for position in the race to become the next DNC chair. And on Saturday, Interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile said she was ready to step down when the executive committee chooses a new leader in February.