Clinton struggles to win back miners, blue-collar voters
Published 5:15 pm Tuesday, July 26, 2016
- Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey address the crowd at the Democratic National Convention on Monday evening in Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA – A parade of Democrats, from Pennsylvania Sen. Robert Casey to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, are taking turns this week mocking the idea of Donald Trump as a champion of workers.
But Democratic delegates acknowledge their candidate, Hillary Clinton, is struggling with at least one iconic group of worker – coal miners.
Clinton’s comment in March – “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business” – has been taken somewhat out of context. Clinton also said she’d replace those jobs with ones in the renewable energy industry.
Sitting at a bar in the Kentucky delegation’s hotel on Monday night, Delinda Dent, a Sanders delegate from Richmond, Kentucky, acknowledged that she understood what Clinton meant but added, “As someone with three generations of coal miners in my family, it hurt to hear her say that.”
At last week’s Republican National Convention, Mac Warner also brought up the comment. Standing on an arena floor, Warner, like others in the West Virginia delegation, was wearing a hard hat with a sticker that said, “Friends of Coal.”
He noted that Clinton swept President Barack Obama in all West Virginia counties in their 2008 primary battle. This year, after her remark, Sanders beat Clinton in all of the state’s counties, said Warner, a Republican candidate for secretary of state.
“And she’s going to lose every county to Donald Trump,” he crowed.
Trump, in accepting the Republican nomination last Thursday, predicted that he will win over miners and other workers worried about their futures as a result of environmental regulations imposed by the Obama administration.
Steel workers are concerned about their futures as a result of limits on coal and the government’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
Trump has pledged not to sign a trade deal “that hurts our workers” and predicts he will win the support of millions of Democrats as a result.
Though maybe not proving that, a CNN poll after Republican convention bore out Clinton’s struggles among blue-collar workers.
Trump led her, 44 percent to 39 percent, in a four-candidate race including Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Gary Johnson. He also led in a head-to-head match-up with Clinton.
Voters are also split by education, according to the poll.
After the Republican convention, Clinton gained ground among college graduates. But Trump increased his lead among white voters who do not have a college degree, to 62 percent over Clinton’s 23 percent.
Prior to the Republican convention, he led Clinton among those voters, 51 percent to 31 percent.
Democrats are lashing out at Trump, saying the idea of a billionaire real estate developer being a friend of blue-collar workers is laughable.
Highlighting middle-class issues in the first night of the Democratic convention, Casey said if Trump is the champion of American workers, “then I’m the starting center for the 76ers.”
Casey said Trump’s clothing line is produced overseas. He noted Trump’s own controversial comment that American wages “are too high.”
Trump later said his remark, made during a primary debate, was meant to refer to the idea of raising the national minimum wage to $15 per hour.
At a breakfast meeting of Pennsylvania Democrats on Tuesday, Neal Bisno, national executive vice president of Service Employees International Union Healthcare, repeated the attacks on Trump.
Bisno disagreed that Clinton is struggling with blue collar workers. He said those workers are behind progressive ideas being pushed by Democrats and unions – including a higher minimum wage.
Speaking at the breakfast, Casey said the nation’s “greatest challenge” is to “raise the income for hard-working Americans.”
He cited a study by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning Washington, D.C., think tank, that found the productivity of U.S. workers increased 97 percent between 1948 and 1973, while wages went up 91 percent. Since then productivity has gone up 90 percent and wages have risen only by 9 percent.
“I don’t want to my great-grandchildren to say, ‘My goodness, now we’ve had 9 percent wage growth for 40 years,’” Casey said.
On Monday night, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren picked up the attack on Trump, saying he hasn’t articulated how he’d raise wages.
“Other than talking about building a stupid wall, which will never get built, really, did you hear any actual ideas?” she asked in her convention speech. “Did you hear even one solid proposal from Trump for increasing incomes, or improving your kids’ education, or creating even one single good-paying job?
“Donald Trump has no real plans for jobs or for college kids or for seniors, no plans to make anything great for anyone except rich guys like Donald Trump,” she said.
But, for coal miners, it might be too late to win them back.
“It’s very clear, Donald Trump supports coal 100 percent,” Warner said last week. “Hillary Clinton wants to put the coal miners and coal companies out of business.
“Its part of our heritage. We want the future of the industry decided by the free market – not by Hillary Clinton,” he said.
Dent, from Kentucky, and West Virginia state Rep. Barbara Fleischauer said this week in Philadelphia the solution is to attract other industries to Appalachia.
But that’s a hard sell for coal miners, said Fleischauer. Talking about changing a way of life is “taboo,” she said. It will also take time for miners to see an alternative.
“‘Just elect me, and I’ll fix everything,’ is not a plan, just an empty promise,” she said. “It is naive to suggest that the multitude of problems facing coal – including market forces – will be a simple fix.”
But miners are worried about their futures, and it’s tempting to look for easy solutions offered by Trump, such as eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency, said Kenny Madden, a Sanders delegate from Berea, Kentucky.
Those willing to change their livelihoods have already moved away from the coalfields, he said.
Jessica Wells, also a Sanders delegate from Berea, said her uncle used to do metal work for a coal business and could be open to a change that lets him stay home.
But, for now, he travels to Michigan during the day to find work, and he comes back to Kentucky on the weekends to be with his wife and newborn child.
Kery Murakami is the Washington, D.C. reporter for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at kmurakami@cnhi.com