Union-fed Democratic voters Harris isn’t crossing over in Pennsylvania

The former president Donald Trump and adze, SpaceXand X billionaire businessman Elon Musk they swept through Pennsylvania, the community that could decide next week’s election, and other battleground states, both of which have mixed records on unions but also huge appeal among the crucial electoral bloc.

At the same time, for example, Harris could not get the support International Brotherhood of Teamstersthe first time the union has not publicly endorsed a candidate since 1996, and the International Association of Firefighters a few weeks later.

Meg Young, 58, a retired Bryn Mawr engineer who served as president Joe Bidenthe trade union event on Friday in Philadelphia — his first public appearance since referring to Trump supporters as “garbage” — complained that Trump “said the most hateful things.”

“That still doesn’t change their minds,” Young said Washington Examiner. “I don’t know what else he could say.”

Suggesting sexism, Young claimed she doesn’t understand why union voters connect with Trump or Musk because they don’t “represent” them.

“(Trump) doesn’t even pay them,” she said. “It defies logic. It’s almost like he wants to aspire to be like him, so I feel like being around him is going to help them be like him.”

Last month, on the other side of the Butler community, during a rally marking Trump’s return to the small town where he nearly lost his life in July, Kelly Kiefer, 52, argued that “a lot of Americans wake up and it’s hitting their pockets.”

“I truly believe in blue collar workerwho would always be in line with their union representative, they’re coming now for what’s best for them and their family, and that’s Trump,” the Bethel Park state government employee told Washington Examiner. “That’s where they will go. That’s why I think Pennsylvania will be won by Trump.”

After the Butler rally, Colette Moffitt, 68, recalled that she “never liked” Trump until he became chairmanbut now she is “scared” of him after “the torture they put him through”.

“I think people are fed up,” said homemaker Allison Park Washington Examiner. “I think people are seeing through Kamala Harris’ lies.”

Bethanie Greenholt, 56, wasn’t sure about Trump before he became president and agreed that “a lot of Democrats are upset” with Biden and Harris.

“They came to my door,” the small project manager from Oakdale told them Washington Examiner. “I have Trump signs. Last time, we had 20 Trump signs. They come through the door and tell me their stories.”

This feeling has Democrats Kevin and Denise Olexa, both employees of Acme Markets in Northeast Philadelphia, worried ahead of the Nov. 5 election, particularly because of conservative media coverage of Harris.

“It’s too close,” said Denise Olexa, 40 Washington Examiner at the Biden event on Friday. “I think it’s just the way it comes out. I don’t think there is more of her. It needs to come out a little stronger, showing that it’s more for the unions, that it’s more for the middle class.”

To that end, Trump has an average lead of 0.4 percentage points over Harris in Pennsylvania, which is essentially nothing, according to the data. RealClearPoliticsaggregating polls head to head. Of the 65 polls taken since Biden suspended his campaign included in the data, 17 have Harris and Trump tied, even a USA Today-Suffolk University poll released Friday.

Although other dynamics were at play in 2016, the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton lost the blue wall states of MichiganPennsylvania and Wisconsin Trump, in part, because of her lack of union support, exacerbated by her endorsement free trade and wider improbability. While Clinton won union households over Trump, 51% to 46%her 5 percentage point margin was not as wide as Biden’s 16-point lead four years later.

That’s partly why Biden, despite the president’s unpopularity and penchant for political blunders, traveled to Philadelphia on Friday to highlight his and Harris’ work for unions, including the Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Relief Act, which protected the pensions of 1.2 million unions. workers.

Harris herself announced Friday in Wisconsin that she would eliminate what is not needed college degree requirements for federal jobs through executive action if he wins the election in four days.

“A college degree is not the only measure of a skilled worker’s skills and experience,” she said in Janesville. “One of the things I’m doing on Day 1, because I can do it by executive order, is I’m going to eliminate unnecessary degree requirements for federal jobs and challenge the private sector to do the same.”

Democrats have performed worse among union workers “than they have historically,” according to Middlebury College political science professor Bertram Johnson.

“Harris, and Democrats in general, will try to make up for these weaknesses by building ever-larger majorities among college-educated voters and others with whom Democrats have done better recently,” Johnson told Washington Examiner. “How these two groups compare to each other is a numbers issue that we will find out as the election results come in.”

Former Brookings Institution vice president and director of government studies Darrell West added that Democrats also do well with women.

“Where woman are more numerous in the electorate, that’s a net plus for her,” West said Washington Examiner. “But she doesn’t want Trump’s margins with white men to be so large that they prevent him from winning in crucial swing states.”

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Angela Ferrito expressed optimism, citing state and local unions that supported Harris even though their national counterparts did not.

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“I think I was at the carpenters’ union hall the day after Trump and Elon Musk had a conversation, and Trump said, ‘You’re a great cutter.’ You are a great cutter. A way to cut off those people who wanted to hit,” Ferritos told reporters during a press conference. “The way the Trump years went was not forgotten by the people.”

“There’s a lot of money being spent, but when it comes down to it, Pennsylvania voters remember that Trump promised all these things in 2016 and they didn’t come through,” she said.