Allentown, Pennsylvania
CNN
—
Dan Vicente, the bushy-bearded head of the United Auto Workers union, has seen his fellow union members leave the Democratic Party here in Pennsylvania.
He was almost one of them.
The outspoken UAW Region 9 chief told a crowded room Sunday that he almost voted for Donald Trump in 2016. After two elections, he said he still doesn’t have “a lot of interest” in either party, but supports Kamala Harris. At least not from the working class. ”
But he worries that Trump is still doing the same kind of work he does in many union organizations.
“The truth is, a huge number of union members will vote for Trump,” Vicente told CNN at a pro-Democrat rally. “The National Democratic Party has a huge problem getting its message out to working people. They can make as many statements as they want, but no one is listening.”
The union leaders’ warning is another wake-up call for Democrats over their influence with workers nationally, which has been declining for decades, according to interviews with more than a dozen union members and local Democrats. That’s what it means. Trump’s strength in areas such as eastern Pennsylvania makes it a far more pressing issue for Harris, where her success in winning the White House could depend on thousands of votes. be.
This is also a challenge for Democrats who voted against the Rust Belt. But many labor leaders said in interviews that the National Party is working hard to buck this trend, including Sen. Bob Casey of the Lehigh Valley, Rep. Susan Wilde and Rep. Matt Cartwright of Scranton. He said he could learn from some of the biggest names in the labor world. Over the years, they’ve been going to factories, going on picnics, and going to picket lines.
That’s why Wilde, who holds a key seat in Democrats’ fight to flip the House, took to the stage Sunday morning alongside UAW leaders. The room was filled with volunteer door knockers, organized to support Wilde and Harris.
“Democratic candidates, at least at the presidential level, have not been very good at going to workers and getting to know them, and that’s what they want,” Wilde told CNN. When asked how Harris and Democrats could solve this problem, she said: But with just a 100-day campaign, that’s much more difficult, she added.
Harris has also been attending union events from Pittsburgh to Lansing, Michigan, during her 100-day sprint as a Democratic candidate.
But while Scranton native Joe Biden has touted himself as the most pro-union president in history, Harris’ support for workers can sometimes get lost in the campaign’s broader message. A September Fox News poll showed Harris leading Trump among likely voters in union households, but Biden ultimately won by a narrower margin among the same group in 2020. Ta.
The Democratic presidential candidate has also garnered support from many of the largest union groups, from the United Steelworkers to the Pennsylvania Teamsters chapter. However, Harris was unable to secure support from the influential national organizations Teamsters and the International Fire Protection Association, both of which withdrew their support from the presidential race.
And reaching people beyond the leadership table is more difficult.
“The people we really need to reach out to are members of the public,” Wilde said.
When Wilde, a three-term House Democrat, showed up at a local fire station last week to speak to members of Carpenters Union Local 167, the mostly male audience initially seemed skeptical.
She knew what issue they were thinking about, immigration, so she decided to speak to them directly. She talked about how Republicans on Capitol Hill, egged on by Trump, defeated a bipartisan border security bill. And she talked about how President Trump’s rhetoric, which she said focused on “rapists and murders and fentanyl,” belies the truth of most immigrants’ stories, saying they are focusing on “rapists and murders and fentanyl.” They are more likely to join a union than take a job, she said.
“A lot of these guys aren’t registered Democrats, so they really have to trust you,” Wilde told CNN.
Harris has made pro-labor appeals a key part of her final message to voters. In speeches, ads and interviews, she has called for tax breaks for auto plant closures and companies moving offshore during Trump’s presidency.
Lehigh Valley Labor Council President Greg Potter said he has seen Democrats sometimes take union votes for granted. But he fully agrees with Harris, saying, “I believe she’s learning what’s important to us.”
“I didn’t know much about her record, so I looked into it. She’s the real deal,” said Potter, who appeared at the Allentown promotional event wearing a Harris Waltz T-shirt. “It took a few weeks, but it’s firmly established.”
But Potter added: “People say, well, all unions are Democrats. Well, that’s hardly ever the case.”
“We’re divided,” he said.
Thirteen days before the election, yellow highlighter Harris signs dotted the highways of eastern Pennsylvania. Each giant billboard advertises a different economic policy, from raising the minimum wage to protecting Social Security.
President Trump’s own sign along the same road reads: “Donald Trump, cut taxes. Kamala Harris, raise taxes.”
Democrats argue that it is their policies, not Republican policies, that actually benefit the working class. But they also acknowledge that they still have trouble following through on President Trump’s truthful statements.
But recently, Trump and his Republican allies have provided Democrats with a new talking point. It’s a video clip of Trump promising his supporters tax cuts while joking that they are already “freaking rich.”
One ad that regularly airs here shows UAW members in Allentown shaking their heads at President Trump’s “ridiculously rich” comment and saying they plan to vote for Harris. (Its member Buddy Maxwell Jr. was among the campaign workers Sunday, and he told CNN that several people had approached him to say he helped sway the vote for Harris.)
Still, Democrats clearly see an inability to win over working-class votes in Pennsylvania, especially among white voters. Instead, their strategy is: “You can lose by a small margin.”
“Margins matter,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Democrat from southeastern Pennsylvania. He said Biden was able to win the state in 2020 because he did “slightly” better than Hillary Clinton among these voters.
“The Democratic candidate doesn’t need to win. The Democratic candidate still needs to get a significant number of votes,” he told CNN.
Meanwhile, Republicans are working to prevent that from happening. Mr. Trump, for example, won support from local steelworkers unions. And several Republican candidates in recent years have taken pro-labor positions that would have been unheard of in the Republican Party over the past few decades.
Rob Bresnahan, the Republican candidate running against Matt Cartwright, a longtime congressman from Biden’s hometown of Scranton, said: “I’m the type of candidate who can resonate with inflation and the economy and collective bargaining.” We can also promote it.”
But there is another very important voting group among union members that gives Democrats hope in states like Pennsylvania. It’s a woman.
On a recent sunny Sunday morning, two union leaders — Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Angela Ferritto and UAW Local 644 President Jim Hutchinson — met husband and wife team Cindy Lazarus and Cheyenne Lazarus. I knocked on about a dozen doors before arriving at the house.
And these two women are the kind of voters who make Harris and the Democrats believe they can win in November.
Cheyenne, in her 20s, answered the door wearing a pro-Harris Childless Cat Ladies Social Club T-shirt. She and her mother, Cindy, an SEIU union worker at an Allentown retirement community, had already voted early for Wilde, Casey and Harris.
“I’ve been known to split the ticket, but not in the last 12 years, because the Republicans are crazy. I won’t say what I think,” Cindy joked. Said. “They just went crazy.”
“I couldn’t wait to put a bear in front of the woman’s name,” she said of filing an early vote. “I’ve been waiting for a long time.”
