Working America is Helping Harris Win More Non-College Voters

I wrote in August that Kamala Harris still had a lot of work to do to bolster her standing among non-college whites. Her goal is not to win these voters; it's to limit her losses—at the very least, matching Biden's 2020 performance, when he won 37% of non-college whites. 

But Harris is still struggling here, with the most recent national New York Times/Siena poll showing her with 33% support among non-college whites—below Hillary Clinton's performance when she narrowly lost in 2016. Even more worrisome, the poll showed Harris winning only 62% of non-college voters of color—well below the vote share of past Democratic presidential candidates.

In other words, Harris faces challenges with all working-class voters. 

Engaging Working-Class Voters to Help Harris and Other Democrats

The good news is there's still time for her to make gains with these voters in the last few weeks of the election. And few organizations are working harder to move the needle than Working America, which is now engaged in a massive outreach effort to non-college voters of all races in every battleground state.

Like many organizations Blue Tent recommends, Working America doesn't parachute into communities at election time asking for Democratic votes. Instead, it engages working people year-round, conducting grassroots organizing with localized goals and focusing on winnable political fights that are directly relevant to people’s lives. These issues include raising the minimum wage locally and lowering healthcare costs. The idea is that when workers see progress from their political engagement, it helps to build trust and a sense of empowerment.

During elections, Working America fuses this deep investment in communities with a sophisticated voter engagement program. It uses randomized control trials to measure the effectiveness of its in-person and digital efforts at persuasion. And this group operates on a large scale. Working America is now having 40,000 face-to-face conversations every night with working-class voters in battleground states, growing to 70,000 per night by Election Day. 

“One of the Most Effective Ways to Produce Net Democratic Votes”

Analysis by Focus for Democracy, which uses a rigorous, metrics-based approach to evaluate electoral giving options, has found that Working America offers great value to donors. It’s called the group “one of the most effective ways to produce net Democratic votes in the key battleground states, by a long shot."

With Election Day coming up fast, Working America is still raising money and assures us that last-minute funds can be put to good use. I hope you can pitch in.