It happened. Joe Biden has stepped down from the presidential race and endorsed Kamala Harris as the next Democratic candidate. Both moves are good decisions; over the past few weeks Biden’s poll numbers have plummeted, while Harris’s have steadily risen. The chaos of an open convention is not something most Democrats want, and I expect the party will quickly rally around Harris. But while the change puts an end to the suspense, it doesn’t yet solve a major issue for Democrats: how to lock in working-class voters in November.
Blue-collar voters have never been Harris’s target audience. She’s seen more as a shiny California former lawyer and prosecutor. Meanwhile, Republicans have continued their successful courting of working people. At last week’s Republican National Convention, Sean O’Brien, the head of the Teamsters union, threw a grenade in labour politics by playing both sides of the aisle on behalf of his membership.
O’Brien was the first Teamster in 121 years to speak at a Republican convention. It was a smart political move, and one that — as he pointed out in his speech — mirrors the approach of business itself. “We need to call the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable what they are,” he said. “Unions for big business.” True enough. Such organisations might profess to be apolitical and free market, but in reality they are, like unions, membership groups that lobby for the vested interests of dues payers.