What Keir Starmer’s victory means for Kamala Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris has righted her party’s capsized ship and opened a small but consistent lead over Donald Trump in national polls. Now comes the decisive test: Charting a winning course in the Electoral College.
To attain a majority of 270 votes or more, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), must carry at least three, and in some scenarios four of the seven battleground states. All look like dead heats today.
They can count on a strong turnout by a reenergized Democratic base, but that won’t be enough. You can’t win swing states without winning swing voters. The campaigns are spending prodigiously in these states to sway roughly 3 million voters who tell pollsters they’ve yet to make up their minds.
The fence-sitters tend to be moderate, independent and working-class (non-college). New research on swing voters by my organization estimates that undecided voters without college degrees range from about 13 to 16 percent of the population in the battleground states.
The rub is that non-college voters — who made up 63 percent of the electorate in the last two elections — have yet to warm to Harris. She’s trailing Trump by 17 points nationally among them, compared to Biden’s mere 4-point deficit in 2020.
As Democrats work to narrow that gap, they should look to their counterparts in Great Britain for inspiration and tactical tips.
On July 4, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won a resounding victory over the governing Conservatives, ending a 14-year exile from government.
Starmer took over as his party's leader in 2020, following Labour’s crushing defeat under Jeremy Corbyn the year before. In 2019, Boris Johnson and the Tories had breached Labour’s “Red Wall,” winning 28 traditional working-class constituencies across England’s post-industrial Midlands and north.
In July, Labour swept 37 of 38 Red Wall seats while also gaining dozens more in Scotland at the expense of the Scottish National Party. Key to its success was a 5-point increase in support among non-degree voters.
The United Kingdom’s voters were exasperated after 14 years of Tory rule, including the long-running imbroglio over Brexit, a flagging economy and factional battles that produced five ideologically dissimilar prime ministers. Britons wanted change badly, but they needed reassurance that Labour was ready to govern.
“Changing our party was the vital proof point” that Labour could change the country, says Deborah Mattinson, a key party strategist and pollster who recently surveyed U.S. battleground states for the Progressive Policy Institute.
Harris has a trickier hand to play. She’s a fresh face and comparatively young, but she’s also an incumbent presiding over the worst bout of inflation in decades. How can she convince working-class voters, who think the country is heading in the wrong direction, that she can bring the change they want?
Here’s where Labour’s turnaround yields valuable lessons. Starmer began by purging Labour of Corbyn’s dogmatic socialism, which thrilled left-wing activists but was far removed from the everyday worries of economically stressed working families.
Next, Team Starmer focused with surgical precision on what they dubbed “hero voters” — older, working-class voters who traditionally had voted Labour but voted Conservative in 2019 out of a combination of economic insecurity, pro-Brexit sentiment and the belief that Corbyn’s party had abandoned them.
Starmer listened to these voters and made their concerns Labour’s priorities. “On policy, Starmer moved the party to the center-ground, promising economic stability, reformed public services and moderation on cultural issues,” says Mattinson.
To rebuild trust in Labour’s economic competence, Starmer stressed economic investment over social spending, vowing to make Britain a clean energy superpower, while assuring private sector leaders that Labour would be “pro-worker and pro-business.”
Rachel Reeves, now chancellor, promised fiscally responsible policies to promote investment and growth and avoid raising taxes on working families.
Starmer used his working-class background to empathize with hero voters’ strong patriotism, traditional family values and need for public order and social stability. A former prosecutor like Harris, Starmer took a tough line on crime as well as immigration, pledging to go after criminal gangs sending migrants across the English Channel.
Harris has also struck patriotic notes, steered clear of the polarizing language of identity politics and promised to reduce illegal immigration. She’s stressed her own lower-middle-class story and focused on driving down the cost of living.
These departures from progressive orthodoxy are refreshing but may not be enough to dent working Americans’ perception that Democrats are more responsive to college grads and cosmopolitan elites than to them. What’s needed is a comprehensive reorientation of Democratic political and governing commitments around the needs of working families who fear they are falling out of the great American middle class.
For example, Democrats should junk the false promise of “college for all” and shift resources from student loan forgiveness to new investments in expanding high-quality alternatives to college. Specifically, they could call for a dramatic ramp-up of apprenticeships that allow young people to earn and learn at the same time.
And instead of indulging utopian fantasies like the Green New Deal, Democrats should propose a realistically paced clean energy transition that doesn’t threaten working families with the abrupt loss of good production jobs, energy scarcity and higher fuel bills.
Above all, they need to emulate Starmer’s pragmatism and success in putting his party back in “service to working people.”
That’s how Harris and Walz can steer Democrats back to home port and win in November.
Will Marshall is president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute.
Date: | |
Tag: | Kamala Harris |
Topics
-
Financial Times - Business
Starmer meets Trump in New York
UK prime minister says ‘diary challenges’ scuppered meeting with US vice-president Kamala Harris8 hours ago - New York -
Financial Times - World
Why is Keir Starmer under pressure over freebies?
Prime minister and senior allies’ acceptance of gifts carries political risk for Labour11 hours ago -
The Guardian - World
Keir Starmer meets Donald Trump in push for good relationship
The PM and foreign secretary David Lammy met the Republican candidate, but were not able to schedule a meeting with Kamala Harris. Keir Starmer has met Donald Trump for a two-hour dinner in New ...17 hours ago - Donald Trump -
The Guardian - World
‘Pretty farcical’: Keir Starmer downplays use of Waheed Alli’s £18m penthouse
PM says the public can make their own judgments about gifts and maintains no rules have been broken. Keir Starmer has said the row over him borrowing Labour donor Waheed Alli’s luxury flat for ...18 hours ago -
CBS News - Top stories
Kamala Harris offers some specifics on economic policies
Vice President Kamala Harris made remarks in Pittsburgh about her economic plans as the economy proves to be pivotal for voters in the 2024 election. CBS News' Caitlin Huey-Burns has more.20 hours ago - Kamala Harris -
CBS News - Top stories
Kamala Harris headed to the border, Trump meets with Zelenskyy
Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting the U.S.-Mexico border Friday as former President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York. CBS News' Caitlin Huey-Burns ...49 minutes ago - Donald Trump -
CNBC - Business
UK PM Keir Starmer touts pro-business agenda as he woos top Wall Street CEOs
"We now have a Labour government whose number one priority is wealth creation," U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer told CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin.1 hour ago - United Kingdom
More from The Hill
-
The Hill - Politics
McConnell: Harris-backed filibuster rule change would 'turn America into California'
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Thursday warned that if Democrats follow through on Vice President Harris’s pledge to eliminate the filibuster to codify abortion protections, it ...36 minutes ago - California -
The Hill - Politics
Congress’ failure to pass the farm bill reflects a long history of hunger as a political tool
The farm bill, which includes funding for food stamps, is set to expire on Sept. 30 but is likely to be delayed due to political jockeying over work requirements and the end of expanded COVID-19 ...54 minutes ago -
The Hill - Politics
Democrats investing in all 50 states to 'beef up' organizing
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced Friday that it would be giving nearly $2.5 million in total grants to more than 30 state parties in an effort to ramp up organizing efforts as ...56 minutes ago -
The Hill - Politics
Trump rally moved over Secret Service staffing concerns
Former President Trump moved the venue for his Saturday campaign rally in Wisconsin amid concerns over Secret Service staffing, a senior official briefed on the planning confirmed to The Hill. ...57 minutes ago - Donald Trump -
The Hill - Politics
Reward offered for Iranian in alleged Bolton assassination plot
The U.S. is offering a reward of up to $20 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of an Iranian man accused of plotting to assassinate former U.S. national security adviser ...1 hour ago - Iran