I'm used to writing complex WP queries, but am currently stumped. On a new website I have a dozen published posts, but the basic loop in WordPress doesn't find them.

 <?php

$the_query = new WP_Query($args);

if ( $the_query->have_posts() ) {
    while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) {
        $the_query->the_post();
         echo '<li>' . get_the_title() . '</li>';
    }
} else {
   echo 'no posts found';
 }
wp_reset_postdata();

?>

I just get "no posts found" returned. What could the issue be?