Joe Biden’s big bet

As President Biden prepares to run for reelection in 2024, he is wagering that his legislative successes will give him an edge with blue-collar voters. For decades, blue-collar workers were a mainstay of the Democratic coalition. Seeking a third term in 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt won 68 percent of the votes cast by semiskilled and unskilled workers.

Democrats were seen as the party of the working class, while Republicans were the party of the well-educated and well-to-do. But times changed. During the 1980s, Reagan Republicans disparaged Democrats as belonging to the “brie and Chablis” set, while portraying their candidates as folks with whom you would like to share a beer.

By 2008, Barack Obama won just 40 percent backing from whites without college degrees. Eight years later, Hillary Clinton did even worse, winning 28 percent support from non-college whites, while Donald Trump corralled 67 percent of their votes. In Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, Trump’s winning margins among white non-college educated voters were 32 percent, 31 percent and 28 percent, respectively, giving him an Electoral College majority. 

An important reason for the shifting loyalties among blue-collar voters was a decades-long decline in manufacturing. In his surprisingly strong 2016 challenge to Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) won votes from disenchanted Democrats in the Rust Belt.

Watching the primary campaign unfold from the White House, an increasingly disturbed Joe Biden – remembering his working-class roots in Scranton, Pa., and Claymont, Del. – said of Sanders, “At least he gets it.” Taking office, Donald Trump described an “American carnage” that left rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our Nation.”

Hearing those words, George W. Bush exclaimed, “That was some weird shit.” But Trump’s depiction resonated in the heartland, where displaced workers hoped he would bring better times. But after four years as president, Trump accomplished little. Infrastructure week became a running joke, and Trump yielded to the party’s elites who wanted tax cuts for the wealthy.

Nonetheless, in 2020, Joe Biden lost white non-college educated voters by 35 points. This happened despite a pandemic, a shuttered economy and Trump’s divisive persona.

As Biden steels himself for another rematch with Trump, he is betting that passing the biggest infrastructure program since Dwight D. Eisenhower, signing a Chips and Science Act that promises new construction and manufacturing jobs and promoting an American Rescue Plan that salvaged thousands of small businesses will accrue to his benefit. Biden takes pride in noting that “manufacturing is rebounding at the fastest rate in 40 years,” and he envisions offering “every American the path to a good career whether they go to college or not.”

Other Democrats are taking notice. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order ending a requirement that state employees have a college degree. In Maryland, Gov. Wes Moore is focusing his attention on creating apprenticeships that will help train high school graduates for the blue-collar jobs of the 21st century.

Biden’s bet is that his programs will translate into votes. From now until Election Day 2024, expect Biden to be at nearly every construction site, even telling Republicans who opposed his plans, “See you at the ground-breaking.” But will this transformation happen fast enough?

Getting shovels into the ground and jobs on manufacturing floors takes time. A report from a Democratic strategist notes that blue-collar voters are “both cynical about what we are saying now, and unaware of all that Democrats have accomplished that will directly benefit them,” adding, “Our brand is pretty much damaged” in the factory towns of the industrial Midwest.

Even if Joe Biden manages to make quick work of his legislative goals, will it matter come 2024? For years, political scientists cited James Carville’s famous maxim, “It’s the economy, stupid” when it comes to what matters most on Election Day. But that dictum hasn’t translated into votes the way it once did.

Thomas Frank’s “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” posed the dilemma Democrats face. Thanks to the culture wars, Frank noted that blue-collar workers were voting against their own economic interests because they believe Democrats are opposed to both God and guns and support gay rights. Today, Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) are battling over who will carry the Republican Party’s culture war banner. Taking aim at transgender students, Trump promised that if returned to the White House, he would prohibit “sex and gender transition at any age.”

Not to be outdone, DeSantis touts his support for a bill that prohibits instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity to kindergarten through third grade students and opposition to it from the Walt Disney Corporation as culture war victories, boasting, “Florida is where woke goes to die.”

Elections are won or lost at the margins. In 2024, Joe Biden is unlikely to win the blue-collar vote, despite his achievements. The damage done to the once-solid blue-collar Democratic loyalties cannot be undone in one election, or even two or three. But improved scores can give Biden wins in the key states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, enough to keep the moving vans away from the White House. This is Biden’s big bet, one where the stakes are enormously high.

John Kenneth White is a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America. His latest book, co-authored with Matthew Kerbel, is “American Political Parties: Why They Formed, How They Function, and Where They’re Headed.” He can be reached at johnkennethwhite.com.