Harris, Biden Teaming Up to Court Union Vote in Labor Day Blitz

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(Bloomberg) — Vice President Kamala Harris is looking to strengthen her standing with blue-collar workers on Labor Day with visits to two critical swing states, including a joint campaign appearance with President Joe Biden.

Harris arrived on Monday in Detroit, where she’s due to start her Labor Day campaigning in battleground Michigan. The Democratic presidential nominee is then headed to Pennsylvania for an event in Pittsburgh, where she will be joined by Biden. 

In the Steel City, Harris will tell supporters that United States Steel Corp. should remain domestically owned and operated, according to an official familiar with her plans — coming out against a planned sale of the company to Nippon Steel Corp. that Biden has also opposed. 

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Michigan and Pennsylvania, along with Wisconsin, comprise the so-called Blue Wall of northern industrial states that Republican Donald Trump carried in 2016 and Biden flipped in 2020 — and which are again poised to play a key role in determining the winner of November’s general election.

Economic issues will be paramount in those states and Harris’ hopes of succeeding Biden in the White House hinge in part on her ability to draw support from White, working class voters — in particular union members — uneasy with the administration’s handling of the economy and drawn to Trump’s populist agenda.

The latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll released last week found a tight race in the states Harris is visiting — with the vice president leading Trump by three points in Michigan and four points in Pennsylvania. She leads by 2 percentage points among registered voters across seven swing states.

EV Blues

Harris has the support of prominent union leaders, such as United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, but Trump has made inroads with organized labor’s rank-and-file, capitalizing on the high inflation which has soured perceptions of the administration’s economic record and worries about Biden’s push to transition the US to electric vehicles.

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That policy is particularly fraught in Michigan, where a significant portion of the population is employed in auto industry-related jobs and where union workers fear the transition will result in lost employment and lower wages.

While Detroit is solidly blue turf and Harris is eager to boost turnout there, she faces a potentially tougher climb in nearby Macomb County. It’s a former stronghold of so-called Reagan Democrats, voters who defected from the party to back a Republican — a scenario the vice president will want to prevent in November.

Trump visited Michigan on Thursday, for an event focused on the economy, where he assailed Harris. “I’m here today with a simple message for the American auto worker and for the American worker: Your long economic nightmare will very soon be over,” the former president said.

Pennsylvania Prize 

Democrats face many of the same challenges in Pennsylvania, in particular the western half of the state — with strong union roots and working-class communities where voters have drifted toward Trump. 

With Biden in tow, Harris is looking to inherit the support the president built up among those groups in 2020, in part by touting his early childhood in Scranton, Pennsylvania — albeit in the state’s northeast. In office, Biden has also boasted that he’s the most pro-union president in US history.

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Harris also campaigned through the western part of the state in August just ahead of the Democratic National Convention, including a stop in Beaver County, a conservative-leaning exurb to Pittsburgh’s northwest.

The Biden-Harris ticket carried Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh, in 2020 with more than 59% of the vote, a crucial boost in a state they won by a narrow margin — just over 1 percentage point. 

Monday’s visit to Pittsburgh marks Harris’ ninth trip this year to Pennsylvania, highlighting how the campaigns are ramping up their efforts to win the most populous of the core battleground states with a prized 19 Electoral College votes. 

Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, acknowledged in a Bloomberg Television interview last week that the race had tightened in Pennsylvania, calling it a “must-win” and saying that the party would consider putting more money into the state.

Trump visited western Pennsylvania on Friday, with a rally in Johnstown, about a 70-mile drive east of Pittsburgh.

Steel, Fracking

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Two economic issues loom as potential flashpoints in Pennsylvania — the steel industry and fracking.

Nippon’s planned purchase of US Steel, which Biden said he opposes and Trump has signaled he would block, has created a political firestorm in Pittsburgh. The deal was announced in December and hinges on the approval of federal regulators. Harris will say Monday that she shares Biden’s opposition to the takeover, which Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has also come out against. 

As the biggest city in the Marcellus shale formation, Pittsburgh is also ground zero for many of the debates about fracking, which has boosted the economy of Pennsylvania, the second-largest US producer of natural gas. 

In an interview with CNN last week, Harris said she wouldn’t halt fracking if elected president, reversing her prior opposition to the technique which is used to produce most US oil and gas today.

“What I have seen is that we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking,” Harris said.

Election Day Sprint

Labor Day traditionally marks the start of a more frenzied stage of the presidential race, with campaigns beginning a two-month sprint to Election Day. Harris’ Monday events kick off a week that will see the campaign visit multiple battlegrounds. 

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Harris has enjoyed a surge of fundraising and enthusiasm since entering the race in July and erased much of the lead Trump has held nationally and in key swing states. And she’s begun rolling out her policy agenda, with a focus on economic issues to counter voters’ concerns about high prices. 

But that rollout has been short on details and seen her thread a potentially challenging path — defending the Biden administration’s record even as she urges voters to “turn the page” and move past the bitter politics of recent years. 

Republicans have challenged Harris to detail how her presidency might differ from her current boss, Biden, and questioned why she did not do more to enact some of the policies she has espoused.

In her first interview as the Democratic presidential nominee, alongside Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, her running mate, Harris revealed little new detail on her policy positions while also avoiding any damaging missteps. 

—With assistance from Josh Wingrove and Gregory Korte.

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