POLITICO Nightly: Kamala Harris’ working-class voter problem

By Gavin Bade Presented by Citi Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at IBEW Local Union #5 on September 2 in Pittsburgh. | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images UNION WEAK — Kamala Harris’ problem connecting with working-class voters finally got real this week. On Wednesday, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced it would not endorse a candidate in the presidential election — a break with decades of precedent for the influential union, which has backed Democrats for president since the 1990s. It wasn’t altogether unexpected. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien made waves earlier this summer when he spoke at the Republican National Convention — and was subsequently snubbed from the Democrats’ conclave in Chicago. And the Teamsters PAC earlier this year raised eyebrows when it donated $5,000 to the conservative populist Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) In the aftermath of the non-endorsement, the Harris campaign is downplaying the snub from Teamsters leadership. A number of Teamsters locals in swing states broke with the union’s leadership and backed Harris, the campaign points out, along with the Black caucus in the union, and the West Coast caucus . All told, the Harris campaign says those Teamsters groups endorsing her candidacy add up to more than a million members. That’s all true, but it also papers over some serious problems for Harris with working-class voters — whether in unions or not. When President Joe Biden was still in the race, a Teamsters straw poll showed him beating Trump with its union members by 46 to 37 percent. Now, 58 percent of Teamsters members overall are backing Trump , according to internal polling from the union. That erosion in working class support can be seen in broader polls as well. In 2020, Biden lost non-college educated voters by 8 points, according to Pew , while Hillary Clinton lost them by 7 points. Now, averages of recent polls show Harris losing them by nearly 12 points, even after clawing some back with a solid debate performance. The decline is occurring even as Harris closes the “trust gap” on the economy with the overall electorate. A recent Midwest swing state poll showed that Harris has nearly closed the “trust gap” with Trump on the question of the economy , whereas Biden had been losing the issue handily. Those shifts may suggest that most of the folks who are feeling better about Harris’ economic platform are not the working-class voters who helped deliver Democrats the Midwestern “Blue Wall” states in 2020 and 2022. Instead, they are likely professional class voters, many of them in suburbs, who have college educations but were uneasy about Biden — the fabled “Nikki Haley voter” that Democrats have been trying so hard to woo. And that shift makes sense when you consider Harris’ economic message since she ascended to the top of the ticket, which has been squarely aimed at professional-class concerns. Whereas Biden made manufacturing and industrial policy the centerpiece of his campaign speeches — and still does as a lame duck — Harris barely mentions those policies on the campaign trail. Instead she is focusing much more on elements of the so-called “care economy,” like a child tax credit, as well as helping new homeowners and small businesses. The Harris camp downplays that shift and argues that her economic message is more focused on lowering costs for the middle class than any element of the “care economy.” The vice president “is proud to have helped create 800,000 manufacturing jobs by casting the tie-breaking vote on historic clean energy jobs legislation and helping pass the high-tech manufacturing CHIPS bill to make us more competitive with China and the bipartisan infrastructure law,” spokesperson Lauren Hitt said. But that statement — delivered after our article pointing out the economic pivot — is one of the few times you’ll hear the campaign or candidate talk about the Biden administration’s trillion-dollar investment in infrastructure and clean energy manufacturing. The only other time recently came when Harris touted the industrial policies near the end of the debate with Trump. But that came after a detailed outline of her other economic proposals, and was in response to a question on climate change — not the economy. The shift away from industrial policy rhetoric worries some Democrats in the Midwest who still rely on working-class voters, particularly union members. “Consider me in the camp pushing on our future president to keep that industrial policy front and center,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the Democratic nominee for a hotly contested U.S. Senate seat in Michigan, said after a campaign event in Macomb County, a one-time working-class bellwether that has voted twice for Donald Trump. “If you’re not talking about the economy and the future of work in the Midwest, you’re having half a conversation with the voters.” But even if Harris does pivot back to industrial policy, it’s unclear if touting those policies will win over manufacturing sector voters who have been drifting toward Republicans in the Trump era. In Wisconsin this summer, even some factory employees who worked at facilities funded by Biden’s policies and visited by the president still told POLITICO they planned on voting for Trump — they dinged Biden for inflation, even though they themselves received a double-digit raise this year. While the Harris campaign may downplay those dynamics, it’s clear it understands her background as a California prosecutor and public servant may not resonate in the Rust Belt the same way Biden’s did. Case in point: their nomination of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Midwestern stalwart with a background of supporting industrial policies and unions. At a recent Biden rally in Michigan, some union members who said they were still evaluating Harris’ economic policies praised her decision to choose Walz. “I think [Harris] does speak to us” as union members, said Nick Ciaramitaro, a commissioner on the Michigan Civil Service Commission and former director of legislation and public policy for Michigan AFSCME Council 25. “I think Walz has helped her a lot with that.” Harris could still overcome her difficulties with working-class voters, holding on to some with industrial policy rhetoric and adding more professional-class voters to her coalition. But long term, the situation points to the continued transformation of the Democratic Party from its roots as a working-class coalition to one based on credentialed, more educated voters. [There’s more on that in the latest episode of our podcast, POLITICO Energy ]. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at gbade@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @GavinBade .   What'd I Miss? — Feds sue pharmacy gatekeepers over high insulin costs: The Federal Trade Commission sued the three largest pharmaceutical intermediaries charged with negotiating drug prices today on behalf of insurers, claiming they are illegally maximizing profits by steering patients to high-cost insulin products. The case filed in the agency’s in-house administrative court is targeting OptumRx, Caremark Rx and Express Scripts, companies known as pharmacy benefit managers that are owned by UnitedHealth Group, CVS and Cigna. CRYPTO! — Constellation to restart Three Mile Island nuclear plant in deal with Microsoft: Power giant Constellation Energy announced today that it had inked a 20-year deal with Microsoft to supply power to an AI data center from the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, the latest sign of a revival for the nuclear sector driven by the voracious energy demand from the technology industry. The agreement — which would restart a reactor at the plant that was closed in 2019 and slated for decommissioning — comes as major tech companies scramble to secure reliable carbon-free power supplies to run their power-hungry data and artificial intelligence centers. THIS DEFINES HOW WARPED TRUMP IS TO DEMAND A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN OVER HIS TEMPER TANTRUM! — House Republicans work to defuse Trump as they defy shutdown demands: House Republicans are typically hesitant to defy Donald Trump. But on the latest federal spending standoff, GOP lawmakers are telling their presidential nominee that his approach won’t work — and rebuffing his demands to shut down the government if they don’t get a partisan immigration bill. Trump wanted to use the issue as a cudgel in the final throes of his presidential campaign as he calls the security of elections into question — an echo of his false claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election. But Speaker Mike Johnson and leading appropriators have made it clear they aren’t willing to risk their House majority on a shutdown that would kick in just weeks before Election day. Nightly Road to 2024 JILL STEIN HAS NEVER HELD ELECTED OFFICE...RAN FOR MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR & IT WAS APPARENT THAT SHE WAS NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME...SHE NEVER FOLLOWED THROUGH ON HER CLAIM TO CHALLENGE ELECTION RESULTS EVEN THOUGH ONE STATE REPORTED MORE VOTES FOR TRUMP THAN THERE WERE REGISTERED VOTERS.... YOU’RE OUT — The Supreme Court has turned down an effort by Green Party candidate Jill Stein to have her name included on this year’s presidential ballot in Nevada. The ruling — issued this morning without explanation and without any justice publicly dissenting — is a win for Democrats, who feared Stein would sap support from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the important swing state. DEWINE POKES THE BEAR — Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine continued his criticism of former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance in a guest essay published in The New York Times on Friday for amplifying false claims that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. “As a supporter of former President Donald Trump and Senator JD Vance, I am saddened by how they and others continue to repeat claims that lack evidence and disparage the legal migrants living in Springfield,” DeWine wrote. “This rhetoric hurts the city and its people, and it hurts those who have spent their lives there.” PERSONA NON GRATA — North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson will not speak or appear at former President Donald Trump ‘s rally on Saturday in the eastern part of his state following a CNN report about his alleged posts on a pornography website’s message board, two people familiar with the matter said Friday. Robinson is not expected to attend the event in Wilmington, according to a person on the Trump campaign and a second person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning. Robinson has been a frequent presence at Trump’s North Carolina campaign stops. The Republican nominee has referred to Robinson, who is Black, as “Martin Luther King on steroids” and long praised him. But in the wake of Thursday’s CNN report, the Trump campaign issued a statement that didn’t mention Robinson and instead spoke generally about how North Carolina was key to the campaign’s efforts. AROUND THE WORLD Tunisians take part in a protest against President Kais Saied ahead of the upcoming presidential elections in the capital Tunis. | Anis Mili/AP PRISON POPULISM — One of the candidates challenging Tunisian President Kais Saied in the country’s presidential election next month has been sentenced to prison on fraud charges that his attorney decried as politically motivated, reports The Associated Press. Two weeks after his arrest, a court in the city of Jendouba handed down a 20-month sentence for Ayachi Zammel on Wednesday evening, after convicting him of falsifying the signatures he gathered to file the candidacy papers needed to run for president. Zammel faces more than 20 charges in jurisdictions throughout Tunisia. The little-known businessman and head of Tunisia’s Azimoun party is one of two candidates challenging Saied in the North African nation’s Oct. 6 election. His attorney Abdessattar Messaoudi said Zammel planned to conduct his campaign from behind bars . ARCTIC SABER RATTLING — Russia is “fully ready” for a conflict with NATO in the Arctic , the country’s foreign minister warned. “We see NATO stepping up drills related to possible crises in the Arctic,” Sergey Lavrov said, according to Russian state media, in comments for a documentary series that were first reported today. “Our country is fully ready to defend its interests militarily, politically and from the standpoint of defense technologies,” he added. His comments mark the latest round of saber-rattling by the Kremlin, which has repeatedly threatened to unleash nuclear war on NATO and its allies in recent years.   A message from Citi:     Nightly Number €35 billion The size of a loan ($39.1 billion) that the European Union will extend to Ukraine , European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced today. The loan is part of the G7 countries’ pledge this July to support Kyiv for the long term with arms deliveries and recovery aid. RADAR SWEEP PROMISES KEPT — In April of 2019, Notre-Dame de Paris caught on fire. The medieval Catholic cathedral, a crown jewel of Paris, was fully ablaze — and for a second, it looked like one of the most grand and marvelous landmarks on earth was going to be lost to time. But five years later, and after almost $1 billion was promised or donated to reconstruction efforts in the days after the fire, Notre-Dame stands again, open to visitors and fully restored . For GQ, Joshua Hammer took a deep dive into the process, the years and the people at the heart of it. What does it take to rebuild a monument, almost from scratch? Parting Image On this date in 1994: A U.S. hovercraft makes its way to shore on the northern coast of Haiti at Cap Haitien. U.S. forces moved into the northern part of Haiti, one day after landing in Port-au-Prince as part of a military action to remove Haiti's military regime, three years after a 1991 coup. | Rick Bowmer/AP Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .     Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   Follow us

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