Vice President Kamala Harris’ organized labor allies are confronting deep skepticism about inflation, old grudges over free trade and new ones over student loan forgiveness, as the vice president’s most vulnerable group: white workers. It has begun a belated effort to help class voters. and a deep blue-collar affinity for Donald J. Trump.
Working America, the political affiliate of the AFL-CIO created to reach out to non-union workers, has about 1,600 paid recruiters answering the door every day in battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. is knocking, but this is only part of the coordinated movement. It’s an effort by organized labor to exploit Trump’s advantage and bring about a Democratic victory through intensive campaigning.
“We are the difference-maker in the election,” said Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest union federation.
But behind that bravado is realism.
For Harris, there is no need to fudge her numbers to white, working-class voters. Earlier this month, a New York Times, Siena College, and Philadelphia Inquirer poll in Pennsylvania found the vice president leading Trump 50% to 47% overall. . But among likely voters without a college degree, Trump held a 7-point lead.
Among white voters without a college degree, the gap widened to a rift, with 58% supporting Mr. Trump and 40% supporting Ms. Harris. College-educated voters, by a 57% to 41% margin, said Ms. Harris would do a better job of helping the working class than Mr. Trump. But if education is a proxy for class, working-class whites will trust Trump. As for the vice president, 41% said the vice president “will do his best,” while 56% said the vice president will provide the best support.
Service Employees International Union President April Verrett said Democrats’ hand-wringing over a slight drop in support among black men is missing the real problem.
“It’s white men and white women who vote for Donald Trump. We’re not going to sway the majority of them, but as time goes on, we have to address that challenge,” she said. Ta.
The working-class question for Ms. Harris is complex and unlikely to be resolved with less than two weeks until Election Day. Working America campaigner and crew chief Zaeveona Rainey, 25, drove through Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white working-class suburb of Pittsburgh, last Thursday when most voters had not yet cast their ballots. I noticed that it wasn’t there.
Michael Podhozer, who recently retired as the AFL-CIO’s longtime political director, said older working-class voters still associate the party with the free trade principles of Bill Clinton’s New Democratic Party and Trump A coalition highlighted by the protectionist takeover of the Republican Party by the United States. . Many young working-class voters, economically devastated by the coronavirus pandemic and hit by inflation just as they emerged from isolation, appear to have given up.
“Most young working-class people, for good reason, believe that the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, or the political class hasn’t done anything for them,” Podholzer said. “People don’t trust the system.”
But Matt Morrison, executive director of Working America, believes there are voters large enough to reach. He has a theory that drives the recruiters who blanket the battleground states: The personal connections they make night after night make a difference.
“It’s a numbers game,” Morrison said. “You can get enough people on a large enough scale to get soft commits and undecided information.”
And union leaders say they are continuing their efforts despite recognizing the headwinds.
“I want to emphasize that we still have work to do,” said Lee Sanders, president of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and AFL-CIO political chairman. said. area. ”
Mr. Trump is better He said he might just be getting advice.
When Mr. Shakir tells the story of the former president going into a drugstore and finding all the products behind a locked plastic board, he is almost certainly speaking from personal experience. He said it was not. But while Mr. Trump’s story of crime and decline is immediately relatable and recognizable to voters, he argued, the same is not true of Ms. Harris’s story of middle-class growth.
The Harris campaign hopes to garner enough working-class votes in the final stages of the campaign, with Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, visiting union halls and working-class representatives leading support efforts. I believe I have a winning strategy. Strategically place ads at college and professional football games and other major sporting events.
“The bottom line is this,” Harris told union officials in Lansing, Michigan, on Saturday. “Donald Trump’s record is disastrous for workers, and he poses an existential threat to the American labor movement.” ” he said.
Organized labor claims they can break through. On Saturday, a coalition of industrial and service trade unions launched a final push, with leaders saying they will increase membership to 5 million people. Sean Fein, president of the United Auto Workers union, became one of Harris’ most trusted surrogates, traveling throughout Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Public sector unions such as AFSCME, the National Education Association, and the American Federation of Teachers may be facing existential threat. Trump allies, who wrote the Project 2025 blueprint for President Trump’s second term, have vowed to phase out these unions.
More than 5,000 SEIU members will knock on more than 1 million doors in a final effort to get out the vote.
Mr. Morrison portrayed the idea of chipping away at Mr. Trump’s lead as if it were a science, brandishing numbers to prove it. He said that through follow-up calls and management groups, Working America concluded that Democratic candidates received an additional 250,000 votes in 2022, including 90,000 votes for Sen. John Fetterman, who won in Pennsylvania. He said 21,000 votes went to current Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs. .
In Pittsburgh on a recent day, about 250 recruiters arrived from Atlanta to fill out a Pennsylvania crew that will cover working-class suburbs south of the Ohio River. At a training session that afternoon, she was advised to emphasize Harris’ policies and not try to convince people that Trump was to blame.
They were told to make it unique and memorable. If voters identify themselves as the Trump supporters most concerned about immigration, move on. It is set. If you say that people who voted for Trump are most concerned about health care, then lean back. That person may flip out.
Rainey didn’t find many of these “soft commits.” Michael Carden, 42, who works as a meat cutter in what he calls “a very blue-collar job,” told her Thursday night that he staunchly supports Harris.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about who I am and where we’ve become since 2016,” he said. “Trump brought out the inner world in people, and I started thinking about a lot of people less.”
But Trump supporters had their own reasons. One person cited President Biden’s “donation” to college graduates who had their student loans forgiven. The 55-year-old landscaper, who declined to give his name, liked Trump’s arrogance and unpredictability in an unstable world.
“It’s like having Mike Tyson walking behind you,” he said of Trump’s foreign policy.
At least Working America was good for the Americans who worked for it. The base wage for a recruiter is $20 an hour, or $25 for a recruiter working five days a week. If Cancer records 33 completed conversations per night, that can jump to $30 per hour. A completed conversation simply answers the following four questions: What is your biggest issue? Which presidential candidate would you vote for? Which Senate candidate would you vote for? Would you accept the Working America for Harris Yard sign?
“Relationships determine the outcome,” Morrison said.
Some recruiters also have doubts. Door knocker Maria Wesley, 54, said she traveled from Atlanta with dozens of others in Pennsylvania and was smashing wooden pallets for $14 an hour before contacting Working America. “For many of us, this is the best money we’ve ever made,” she said.
But if she couldn’t average 30 conversations a night, she could be fired, and that happened to her once. Bosses are diligent about conducting random checks to confirm that the recruiters’ reports are true. That can cause recruiters to rush through the script, or “rap,” without actually trying to change their minds, Wesley said.
Still, sometimes recruiters connect. At the end of the night, as darkness engulfs Coraopolis, Rainey discovers Victor Martinelli, who is not exactly working class. He retired from his job as a tax director for a venture capital fund at the age of 63. But he was really lost. He said Harris was better on economic policy, but he thought Trump was a better commander-in-chief in a world headed for war.
As he discussed his concerns with Rainey, he seemed to lean toward Harris. “She has a plan,” he allowed. “At least she’s letting us know what she wants to do.”
Still, he thanked Ms. Rainey for stopping to talk. “It makes you think,” he said.
Jazmine Ulloa contributed reporting from Saginaw, Michigan, and Ruth Igielnik from New York.
