“Voting is pointless. There’s no help, that’s why I have no respect for politics,”- says to the New York Times, Chancie Adams, former employee at now closed Master Lock plant in Milwaukee. The final phase of this neck-and-neck presidential race is influenced by “blue-wall” states Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin and their workers’ vote (if they will vote at all), since the low-income population is notoriously more undecided and prone to abstention than any other group due to a progressive loss of confidence in both economy and politics.
As November 5th draws nearer, more and more expert voices are rising to begin summing up what has been deemed a “unique” and one of the most staggering presidential campaigns ever. Polls show that the gap between Harris and Trump continues to narrow. Some have been talking about historical “political realignment”. This vote, no matter who wins, will be indeed the tell-tale sign of how the factors that influence American voters’ decisions have shifted in a span of a few decades. And to such an extent as to reconfigure the political arena. As for now, initial turnout data from states that have opened early voting and postal voting are made public, but it is soon to draw conclusions as the numbers are still partial and confusing.
Traditionally, blue wall states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan used to be Democratic bastions because to union members it was clear that in the battle between labor and capital, Republicans were backing up the wealthiest businessmen. Today however, people are hesitant, especially those among the working-class constituency. And while both candidates have good chances to make these key battlegrounds swing in their favor, one might wonder: when did the Democratic Party turn its back to the blue-collar needs and how far will Harris and Trump go to win them back? Like staging a shift at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. From the endeavors point of view, research institutions are keeping an eye on electoral narrative strategies directed at influencing the working-class voters. In particular, the Center for Working-Class Politics (CWCP) has confirmed Trump’s populist messages such as “They’re taking your jobs!” “Drill, baby, drill!” “Kamala Harris is the tax queen” resonate more within this constituency. Whereas Harris’ straightforward condemnation of big corporations, the call to combat “the existential threat to American democracy” and the promise of well-paying jobs, all seem to appeal more to the professional class, college-educated, wealthier voters rather than blue-collar voters. Harris and the Democratic Party are risking losing this constituency due to a rhetoric that is not appealing to people who have lost their jobs and struggle to make ends meet. For them, to actually have their jobs back would strike the deal, instead of the more idealistic “good-paying job” dream.
You’ve made your bed, now lie in it.
In the race for the 2016 presidency, Democrats thought that Trump’s lunacy would have urged a considerable segment of the Republicans constituency to vote for adversary Hillary Clinton. In a recent New York Times op-ed, reporter Michelle Goldberg recalls Chuck Schumer’s quote that summarizes the changing voter demographics and party affiliations in Pennsylvania: “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia”. Meaning that wealthier, highly educated voters were becoming part of the Democratic constituency, defecting from their electoral habits that viewed the Republicans as their party of reference. How did that happen? The deindustrialisation process that began 50 years ago within the Rust Belt states has certainly played a part. And that process started decades before the infamous NAFTA deal was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1993.
How NAFTA redefined the American political chessboard
As soon as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was ratified, becoming the main topic of the 1992 presidential campaign, voters started to shift, re-aligning the two parties. Clinton was not raising concerns about American workers possibly losing their jobs over the Mexican cheap labor force. He did so discarding unionists’ needs and opinions – core constituencies for the Democratic party – because he was born within the new wave of the party, more business, corporate-friendly. And for this new cycle, NAFTA was the future. People in the manufacturing sector were already losing their jobs due to the deindustrialisation that had been taking place since 1979, but NAFTA made things worse. Expert Dan Kaufman claims that between 1997 and 2020, more than 90,000 factories closed as a result of NAFTA. In 2016, Trump started to point out the issues of plants being moved outside America, while Hillary Clinton never visited Wisconsin, where Whites without a college degree are the 60% of the votes. So Trump won the Blue Wall states, something that no Republican had done in decades, thanks to voters who believed that free trade was indeed taking away American jobs and agreeing with Trump’s statement “NAFTA was the worst trade deal ever”. By looking at the factors that brought this free-market deal and how it played out in the end, it is not difficult to see why those dynamics are shaping today’s election.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too: clean energy economy without banning fracking.
“The position of most working-class people now is disenfranchised and cynical. They saw in real time the results, the way it stuffed them to the wayside, stripping them of the potential they believed in,” says Katherine Tai, the United States trade representative. These changing political loyalties make it complicated and unpredictable for Democrats to regain votes and faith in the parts of the country that are now skeptical about their vague economic proposal. When Kamala Harris told CNN “As vice president, I didn’t ban fracking; as president, I won’t ban fracking,” she did not sound convincing even to resolute Dem voters.
Michigan Democrats have to convince auto industry workers that their ecological transition plan to implement more electric vehicles will not destroy American jobs, which is not easy since Trump’s rhetoric is constantly attacking Biden’s administration on the matter. And this is also due to the emerging of a new generation of blue-collar voters who are not so unionized anymore, therefore drifting away from Democrats into the harms of the GOP; a new reality that Trump’s populism contributed to create with his isolationist economy and the immigrant workers scapegoat “107% of the jobs are taken by illegal aliens,” he said at a rally. He also blamed the current situation on Biden’s administration and warned his electorate that Harris’s economic plan would “turn the United States into Venezuela on steroids”.
Democrats’ handling of deindustrialization has led workers in Rust Belt states to become skeptical of their promises. Their failure to address their social and economic anxieties led these voters to look for a candidate that would challenge the status quo instead of reinforcing it, which may be the party’s major weakness.Harris political discourse hits home for élites and wealthy professionals, while working-class voters are hit by inflation. They see Harris as the continuation of a tradition that has long forgotten them, and while they might like her better as a person, they will vote for Trump – many Trump voters don’t even like him.
These last few days before the election, Harris is going to play her final cards by visiting union halls and by advertising at major sporting events. Her narrative changes course, moving away from her signature critic towards her adversary that won’t hold anymore, and opting for a more concrete political discourse that would highlight how the party’s policies are going to address and improve their economic conditions. The conundrum here seems to be that to voters Harris doesn’t have a plan, although she’s making statements about what she intends to do if elected. At a campaign event in Pittsburgh last month, she said “I have pledged that building a strong middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency. And it’s not about ideology. From my perspective, it’s just common sense.”
Working in Trump’s favor is the electorate’s memory of lower prices during his presidency, being inflation the utmost problem to be solved. That is exactly what he has been promising “Vote for Trump and your incomes will soar, your savings will grow, young people will be able to afford a home”; he intends to do so by slashing energy prices “by half, at least” he said at a rally in Asheville, North Carolina. Working-class voters in the Rust Belt states are desperate for a concrete economic vision that would put an end to their suffering rooted in recent American history, and while economists argue that his promises are far from being realistic, his perspective mirrors their unhappiness with the country’s economy.
While middle-class voters are trusting Harris more on the question of the economy, it’s the working-class trust that is hard to win, as she rarely mentions policies for the manufacturing sector. “I think [Harris] does speak to us” said union member Nick Ciaramitaro, showing that a shift into her communication strategy could still overcome the hesitations of this electorate. But it’s a race against time. Should she lose, the Democratic party could hardly pin it on Harris persona nor accuse her of not having tried harder, as this hurdle of non-college educated voters has its roots in the historical transformation of the party from a pro working-class coalition to one that pleases the middle-class economic agenda.
