Democrats continue to pretend they represent working-class Americans, but polling tells a different story
Oprah Winfrey's interview with Harris featured voters unhappy with current economy.
Vice President Kamala Harris was shown a series of videos from voters during her interview with Oprah Winfrey who say they are unhappy with high prices and cost of living in recent years. (Credit: Unite for America 2024)
Which is more important: having Oprah Winfrey in your corner or the nation’s largest police union? Taylor Swift or steamfitters? Meryl Streep or the majority of Teamsters?
Democrats continue to pretend they represent working-class Americans, but polling tells a different story. When 60% of rank-and-file Teamsters support Donald Trump, compared to only 34% backing Kamala Harris, something profound has shifted. Since Trump emerged as a candidate in 2016 and spoke to the concerns of blue-collar America, we have seen a realignment of party allegiances that terrifies Democrats. Without middle class voters, they will not win the swing states, and they will not win the White House.
Kamala Harris hopes to reverse her campaign’s seepage of working-class voters by hosting gaudy events like the one she just did with Oprah Winfrey, but headliners like "Pretty Woman" Julia Roberts, who joined in Oprah’s virtual town hall, probably won’t move the needle.
What could turn around Harris’ struggles with middle class voters? She needs to articulate a platform that addresses their concerns. So far, she has refused to do that.
A recent New York Times/Siena poll shows Harris racking up her biggest advantage with Black voters (77%), and with college graduates (60% White, 64% non-White). The survey, which shows Harris tied with Donald Trump nationally, shows the former president is most popular with whites without a college degree (65%) – i.e., working-class Americans.
People earning between $50,000 and $200,000 a year make up 59% of the likely voters surveyed by the Times; that middle-class vote is almost exactly split between Democrats, Republicans and independents. Today, independents are breaking in favor of Trump, but the poll shows they are not yet 100% committed to voting for him.
That means some voters are still up for grabs.
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Kamala Harris is trying to grab those voters by resorting to the failed Hillary Clinton playbook of packing her events with celebrities; as we saw with Clinton in 2016, the approach does not always succeed. In late July, early in her campaign, Harris spoke to a large crowd at Georgia State University; many attendees reportedly came to see rapper Megan Thee Stallion, who performed before Harris took the stage. A reporter for the right-leaning outlet Turning Point USA posted a video on X of people leaving half-way through the Democratic nominee’s speech, suggesting Harris had not been the principal attraction.
Harris needs to explain to voters how her administration will make life better for the majority of the country, which has fallen behind these past few years. The Census Bureau reported recently that Americans’ average income (adjusted for inflation) was actually lower in 2023 than in 2019, before COVID. Moreover, between 2017 and 2019, while Trump was president, mean incomes rose 10%. Under Biden-Harris, between 2021 and 2023, incomes actually fell 4.8%. If Harris wants to win, she needs to tell voters how she’ll turn that around. Pretty sure it has nothing to do with her growing up in a middle-class family.
Harris and her Democratic Party have moved far to the left on issues like income redistribution, reparations, law enforcement, allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports and the role of government in our lives, leaving many moderate Democrats and independents behind. In the Times poll, 47% of respondents described Harris as "too liberal or progressive" while only 6% think she is not liberal or progressive enough.
Democrats don’t get it: handing control of your party over to elites on the East and West coast (Harris leads in those regions) leads to extreme policies that don’t play well for the majority of Americans. Opening our border and allowing millions of unvetted migrants to enter our country, ushering in deadly fentanyl, gangs and terror suspects, is not popular. Throwing hundreds of billions of dollars to force conversion to unpopular electric vehicles and backing regulations that have caused electricity prices to soar more than 20%, does not sit well with voters. Spending trillions on leftist priorities and causing inflation that makes people poorer does not win votes.
That is why Kamala Harris has flip-flopped on so many issues. She knows that her progressive agenda will not win in November. Pennsylvania provides a great example of her challenge.
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Election soothsayers say Pennsylvania is key to winning in November, and the state’s blue-collar vote will determine the outcome. Philadelphia voters back Harris by a huge margin (76% to Trump’s 16%) but Trump is currently leading in the rest of the state, 48% to 46%. To win Pennsylvania, Harris must get Philadelphia voters to turn out but must also make inroads with rural conservative voters.
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That’s why Harris has campaigned in Pennsylvania more than a dozen times, and why many in her party thought she should have chosen Josh Shapiro, the state's popular governor, to be her running mate. Causing alarm in the Harris camp: GOP voter registration in Pennsylvania is outpacing Democrats. One analysis concluded, "Democrats in Pennsylvania are entering the home stretch of the 2024 election with their weakest voter registration advantage compared with Republicans in recent decades."
It is also why she is coy about her energy policies. Having adamantly called for a ban on fracking during the 2019 Democratic primary, her campaign now claims her views have changed.
Since fracking accounts for hundreds of thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania and billions in revenue, voters in the state support the activity. Since Harris has not explained her change of heart, voters are unlikely to believe her on fracking or a host of other issues where she has shifted her stance.
In the Times poll, only 35% thought Harris "says what she believes," while 60% credited Trump for saying what he believes.
Star-studded events can make headlines, but they cannot substitute for meaningful policies. Harris continues to avoid face-to-face encounters with reporters, and it is easy to understand why. She is afraid of revealing her true progressive leanings, which will lose the middle class, and the election.
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