Just Build
Quick announcement: Oren Cass and the folks at American Compass just published a good summary of my three-part series on rebuilding American labor unions.
It argues that by making companies nonunion by default, fragmenting bargaining into tiny units, and granting unions exclusive bargaining monopolies that limit worker choice, our laws weaken private sector unions.
Please check it out here.During Bill Clinton’s campaign for president, James Carville famously tacked up a sign reminding everyone that “It’s the Economy, Stupid!”. It’s still true and worth remembering. Fast-forward 32 years however, and the election comes down to voters in Pennsylvania. The sign Harris needs should read ”It’s the Working Class, Stupid” or better yet: “Just Build”.
Four decent quality polls came out for Pennsylvania this week, and VoteCast averaged them: New York Times/Sienal, Quinnipiac, Washington Post, and Marist. The overall numbers are moving slowly to Harris, but the crosstabs suggest that gender and class are still shaping voter preferences.
Charts like this are misleading because the groups they describe are unequal in size. Thirteen percent more women voted than men in 2020 (good news for Harris). But there are about twice as many voters without four year college degrees as voters with them, so a twenty-four point deficit among working class (noncollege) voters is especially costly.
This is hardly Harris’ fault. Her numbers match Biden’s who is, after all, a son of Scranton. And working class voters have been fleeing the Democratic Party for six decades. It began during the 1960s when the civil rights, social justice, and anti-war movements were more comfortable on campus than in working class neighborhoods. In 1980, Ronald Reagan’s patriotism and economic conservatism converted many blue and pink collar workers into "Reagan Democrats". Clinton did well with noncollege voters, but his trade policies alienated many people in industrial regions (he/we took a lot of misplaced grief about NAFTA and far too little for helping China to join the WTO). So it’s a lot to ask Harris to bring these voters back to the Democratic Party in large numbers.
But if Harris can build her white noncollege support to 40% in Pennsylvania, she is very likely to be our next president. She cannot do this by introducing complex new policies into her campaign at this stage, but she can frame the issues she speaks about more effectively under a theme like “Just Build”.
“Just Build” lends coherence to three important campaign topics: affordability, energy, and industrialization. She will also talk about abortion and should — even though this issue doesn’t always land the same in Catholic Pennsylvania as it does elsewhere. (Catholic conservative Democratic Senator Bob Casey is, along with his father, one of the most successful leaders in Pennsylvania history. He leads his Republic opponent David McCormick by about seven points. Casey is officially pro-choice, but only since 2022 and still just barely.)
“Just Build” is a positive way to say “turn the page” on Trump. What is Harris building? Three things:
More affordable stuff. Affordability needs to be a top theme for Harris and her recent ads are much better on this. She talks about grocery prices (her price-gouging spiel is a mess economically, but might work politically?), gas prices (with Biden, she has been smart about expanding production a LOT to keep prices low), housing (a good plan to build three million new homes), and lower cost education (her talk about federal support for apprenticeships and noncollege paths to middle class incomes is better than student loan forgiveness). Add Obamacare and the Childhood Tax Credit, and she has a message about building for affordability.
Energy: Matt Yglesias and Noah Smith have both posted excellent summaries as to why Harris needs to embrace fracking on its merits, not grudgingly accept it as a political concession to win a state with 123,000 jobs in gas and oil extraction. We want to both replace fossil fuels with cheaper clean alternatives and to replace oil from dictators with good old American crude. Harris should loudly and proudly cheer our energy independence and commit to keeping it that way whether or not Pennsylvania is a swing state.
Too many progressives seem to think that drilling or fracking increases demand for oil or gas. This is not how it works. The world is using less petroleum as wind, solar, and batteries take over, but will still need fossil fuel for many years. The question is whether we supply it or Russia does. Harris should own this proudly, commit to building our energy infrastructure, and not treat fracking like an electoral concession.
Industry. This week Harris announced that she backs a new tax credit to bring tens of billions of dollars to domestic manufacturing. The credit would aim to create jobs in cutting-edge fields such as biotechnology and aerospace production, and to strengthen traditional industries such as iron and steel.
Harris can talk about manufacturing, not with nostalgia for a metal-bashing past but as an essential part of a prosperous future. However, she should not denounce Trump’s proposed tariffs as a “sales tax” when she has every intention of preserving tariffs on Chinese imports. Instead, denounce his plan to put tariffs on all imports as both stupid and inflationary.
At this stage of the election, thematics may matter more than policies. People who never finished college living in rural Pennsylvania, especially men, need to know that Harris shares their concerns and has their back. It is not enough to demonstrate that Trump is an authoritarian jackass. In a pinch, desperate voters go with the jackass.
My campaign? I like October surprises, so I’d dress Kamala and Doug in full warpaint and jerseys and have them work the tailgate parties prior to the Eagles home game on October 13. The voters she needs will be in attendance and will welcome her into their tribe. The Eagles play the Browns that day and she can afford to sacrifice a few votes in JD Vance’s Ohio.