WSJ What’s News - Chasing the Vote: How Do Voters View Trump and Harris on the Economy? Look to Wisconsin

Episode Date: October 27, 2024

The unemployment rate in Racine County, Wis., is below the national average, but voters there still feel the sting of high inflation for groceries and other goods. Both Republicans and Democrats have touted new industrial facilities in the region, which in its heyday had factories producing everything from tractors to malted milk balls. For our “Chasing the Vote” series, WSJ political reporter Jimmy Vielkind met business owners, residents and bowlers in Racine to find out how people are weighing the presidential candidates’ economic plans. Relevant links:  Wisconsin Voters Seethe Over Out-of-Control Housing Prices  Battle for Swing States Is Tied, Trump Has Edge on Top Issues, WSJ Poll Shows  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

OCI is the single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. Do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic. Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com slash wall street. But I'm just stocking up because I was on vacation. That's Greg Pattonode. His job involves customer service and pricing analysis, and I met him in the parking lot of a grocery store in Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin. He just finished a big shopping trip.

Fruits and veggies, some frozen dinners, ground beef for meatloaf, and chicken for tacos. The total bill? Around $250. If we could get the current prices that went so high down again to maybe a few bucks or something depending on the item, that'll make a lot of people happy. But right now they're saying... Nearby, Tyler Murphy was going into Kohl's to buy a suit jacket. He said the price of everything is up.

Hoping to spend 50 bucks. Reality, that'll be probably 300. The verdict? About $140, which Tyler, a 39-year-old realtor, described as the cost of doing business. The elevated prices have cemented a support for Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election because of the Republicans' background in real estate development. At the end of the day, people need dollars in their pocket and jobs and roof over their head. Otherwise, you can't live.

Even with his $250 grocery bill, which is noticeably higher than four years ago, Greg, 72, told me he's backing Kamala Harris. He's got concerns about Trump's behavior and doesn't think he'd be better for the economy. So yes, I'm after prices. Yes, I'm after the border. But I'm also active for stability. And I don't think we'll have one if the other party wins.

There are few better places to get voters talking about the economy than a shopping plaza, including this one in suburban Mount Pleasant, about 25 miles south of Milwaukee. Go a few miles east and you're in Racine, a one-time industrial powerhouse where factory workers made everything from tractors to malted milk balls. A few miles west is a new industrial park by the interstate, where officials in both parties have touted big plans for new facilities and the promise of more jobs. When you look at the economic indicators like job growth and unemployment rates, Wisconsin, like the country overall, looks to be in a good place, at least on paper.

But with prices still elevated, I wondered whether voters here perceive the economy in similarly glowing terms. How do people feel or measure the economy now? Are they more focused on jobs or prices? And what did they make of the presidential candidates' plans to make things better? I'm Jimmy Veilkind and this is Chasing the Vote, a multi-part series from the Wall Street Journal. I've been going to swing states around the country to get an on-the-ground feel for the

biggest issues in the presidential campaign. Our most recent episode focused on how younger voters in North Carolina are weighing conflict in the Middle East and the protests it sparked on college campuses. I came to Wisconsin to get a sense of how candidates are connecting with voters, or not, around the economy. Polls show it to be a top issue in the electorate, and that's especially true here. I mean, the economy obviously is huge, as it is everywhere. That's my colleague John McCormick.

He covers national politics with a special emphasis on the Midwest. Wisconsin has been doing relatively well. The unemployment rate in the state is about 20% below the national level. If you want to work in Wisconsin, there's a job for you and the unemployment rate is quite low. But like everywhere, prices in Wisconsin have gone up. Including Racine County, which John said is one of the key swing areas. It's been a political bellwether, voting with the winning candidate in all but five

of the presidential elections since 1896. Donald Trump won the county in 2016 by about four percentage points as he eeked out an unexpected win in Wisconsin. He carried Racine County again in 2020 but lost the state and the nation to President Biden. Trump, Harris, and their running mates have made multiple campaign stops in Wisconsin as well as neighboring Michigan and, to the east, Pennsylvania. Democrats like to call it the blue wall. Of course, that wasn't the case when Trump was able to flip some of those states. Wisconsin is becoming more diverse. Michigan is fairly diverse.

But they have a lot of white working class voters still. And those voters traditionally were Democrats, but Trump was able to win them over. And so there'll be a real battle in all three of those states for white working class voters. Jobs and costs are key arguments in that group, and across the electorate. A Wall Street Journal poll released this month found voters across seven battleground states, including Wisconsin, said they trusted Trump to help with the economy by a 10-point margin. And despite the low unemployment numbers, I got a very wide range of answers when I asked Wisconsin voters how they thought things were going.

If you had to sum up the economy in like three words or so, what would it be? I don't know. Slow but steady. Marginal at best. Very, very bad. Wait, that's a loaded question. That last voice was 60-year-old Joan Rory, who runs a homeless shelter here. She was talking with Bill May, a 71-year-old Vietnam veteran and retired HR manager. They remember

the city and its industrial heyday, after World War II. We've retooled from tractors to B-26 bomber wings, howitzer gun mounts, Horlick Malted Milk was established here, 1875. That was huge. If you had a couple, three, four kids in the family, you wanted to come to work where you were at, you kind of ushered them in. It's the business that you worked at grew. And then when the rust bucket hit, it was just a downturn in the middle class.

And when you've got that tax base out of there, all of a sudden it's a different community. I met Bill and Joan at Racine's Veterans Center, which is a combination of a museum and gathering place. The walls were lined with memorabilia from local military units, and a room full of video games sat next to a square bar. There were about a dozen of us, and people described a very different economic reality now.

We need more help, especially in Wisconsin. Frieda Barkley is 46 years old and just bought her first house. She's an accountant who said she's now making good money, but she was a young mother and two of her adult children are still living with her. I did all of the things that they told me to do, right? I went to school, I worked hard, I worked two, three jobs. Daycare is ridiculously high, even with your co-pay. It's, it is almost impossible.

Tyler Townsend, a 25 year old who says he votes independently, lives in Racine but works at a hotel in Kenosha near the Illinois border. He said the realistic economic prospects of his generation are very different from decades past. I think people are just so focused on just trying to survive right now that like they don't even have the mental capacity

to really do more. Both Harris and Trump say they're trying to change that. One solution? Bring in new manufacturing jobs and hope they'll make things like they were in the heyday that Bill described. More after the break. AI may be the most important new computer technology ever, but AI needs a lot of processing speed and that gets expensive fast.

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Two years into his term in office, he traveled to Mount Pleasant to break ground on what he called the eighth wonder of the world. So I'm thrilled to be here in the Badger State with the hardworking men and women of Foxconn working with you. Moments ago we broke ground on a plant that will provide jobs. with the hardworking men and women of Foxconn working with you. Moments ago, we broke ground on a plant that will provide jobs for much more than 13,000 Wisconsin workers. Foxconn, a Taiwanese firm that assembles Apple's iPhones,

said it would spend $10 billion on the plant. Officials in Wisconsin, led by Republican Governor Scott Walker, offered incentives of up to $3 billion if those targets were met. It was welcome news for the area. Austin Schultz, a 38-year-old Wisconsin native, took over the Plum Gold jewelry store in downtown Racine in 2015. He had just expanded it. jewelry store in downtown Racine in 2015. He had just expanded it. And you know, we were very confident in the economy. And then you have the news of Foxconn coming in and everybody was so like buoyant and positive and excited about it. And then COVID happened and it just all kind of fizzled.

And it wasn't just COVID. Foxconn said the project was bogged down by, quote, cultural assimilation, changing business demands, tariffs, a pandemic, and a presidential election year. Democrat Tony Evers defeated Walker in 2018 in part by attacking the subsidies. In 2021, Foxconn and the Evers administration agreed on a scaled down deal with fewer jobs and far smaller subsidies. The factory did get built. You can see its big dome peeking over what were previously farm fields and a residential subdivision near the highway. Kim Mahoney used to live on the site. Local officials bought out the Mahoney's and their neighbors and moved Kim's house across town as the project was scaled down.

So, very disappointed. I think it was all a ruse. I mean, Trump was claiming that he was going to bring manufacturing back to Racine County. So this was his chance to do that. A Foxconn spokesman said the plant is a key manufacturing site for data servers that employs over a thousand people. The company said it's active in the community. Kim's a Democrat and said the experience has made her wary of big economic development deals. She thinks Trump will be bad for the economy and said she's voting for Harris. Both presidential candidates have talked a lot about jobs and costs.

Harris's economic platform has focused more on helping consumers than boosting jobs. She said she's not going to be able to do that. Both presidential candidates have talked a lot about jobs and costs. Harris's economic platform has focused more on helping consumers than boosting jobs. She's promised to crack down on price gouging and propose the $25,000 grant to first-time home buyers. She also said she'll offer tax credits to boost production in sectors like clean energy and bio manufacturing. And across all these industries of the future, we will prioritize investments for strengthening factory towns.

This is so important. Trump has promised to cut tax rates for manufacturers and levy tariffs on imported goods. He says that'll bring back factory jobs, but economists project that tariffs will increase inflation because companies will pass along costs to consumers. Austin, the jeweler, voted for Biden in 2020, but said he's shifted to be more of an economic centrist. He said he's not sure if he'll vote this year, but he saw a clear benefit from some of Trump's 2017 tax overhaul in his end-of-year income statement.

My accountant spelled it out for me in black and white, you know, there's your line item. And without that, you know, it would have been harder for me to buy this building and expand my business. He says lots of his clients are conservative, and he believes if Trump is elected again, they would have more confidence to spend. Rarely is there an election in the United States where you can directly contrast policies this clearly. That's Congressman Brian Stile, a Republican who represents the area.

He also pointed to the 2017 tax cuts, many of which expire at the end of next year. And Stile said the government was wise to pave the way for new industry by assembling the site by the interstate. We benefit by the fact that there was a significant investment in this industrial park and the ultimate bill will be paid and that's good for the region. But how are voters weighing the candidates' policies? To find out, I went bowling. That's after the break.

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I didn't think there would be many people bowling at 9 a.m. on a Thursday morning. Man, I was wrong. Kessel Lanes, one of two alleys in Racine, was hopping, filled with a league that mostly included retirees, like Joni Bishop, 74, who worked at the local hospital. Do you have a candidate that you like? I like Harris.

You like Harris? Yeah. What appeals to you about her? It's just the way she approaches the people. I'm hoping she's going to lower taxes. Right. And help the people that need the taxes lower. Joni said she thought the economy was doing fine. Nearby, her older sister, Alma Alvarez, felt differently.

It sucks. I mean, there's a lot of jobs out there. It just doesn't make up for the money that you're making and everything going up so high. Both sisters voted for Biden in 2020. Alma said she didn't like Trump but wasn't sure about voting for Harris. All they're doing is bickering against each other instead of what they're gonna do for us. They're not really sane. All they're doing is trying to find faults of each other. Claude Caldwell, a 73-year-old retired corrections officer and Navy veteran, was in the next lane over. He voted for Joe Biden in 2020,

but is still undecided in this race. He's concerned about the economy and immigration. Paris, she's come out with two plans. Trump, he hasn't given me any plans yet. I'm waiting. What did you think of Harris's plans? I think it's half-assed. The Harris campaign has touted endorsements from organized labor to bolster its economic plan, including the United Auto Workers. Union President Sean

Fain called Harris, quote, a fighter for the working class. The UAW has members in Racine who work at the Case Tractor Company. Yassin Mahdi has been president of UAW Local 180 for the last five years, and during that time, he led workers through a nine-month strike. But he has concerns about Harris' economic plan, including the $25,000 for home buyers. He's also worried about Trump's support for tariffs. Sounds good. I would love for him to penalize companies that want to move manufacturing or production out of the U.S. However, ultimately what ends up happening is that the U.S. buyer or consumer pays for that tariff, right?

I guess ultimately I may have to vote for Harris, but I'm not enthused about voting for presidential candidates. He wasn't the only person who felt underwhelmed about the candidates' plans to provide economic relief. Bill, who I met at the Veterans Center, said he would support Harris, but had concerns over how much parts of her platform, like housing assistance, would cost. Morally, I think she's better, regardless. But on things like the economy, you can't keep buying votes. You just can't. You just can't keep writing checks when you got nothing in the bank. It was clear from my time in and around Racine that people are concerned about the direction and strength of the economy and that they're more worried

about the price of everyday life than about finding a job. The overwhelming sentiment that I heard about the economy was one of struggle. Younger people talked about how they felt like they would never reach the same level of comfort as their parents and grandparents. Older people told me they still had kids living at home. And even though this was a top concern for people, it was hard to find someone who was mostly basing their decision off of one of the candidate's economic plans. For Trump, voters pointed to how they were doing financially when he was president, rather than his current platform.

I struggled to find voters who liked Harris' economic proposals or even knew what she was proposing. The people who planned to vote for her offered other reasons, like promoting stability on the world stage or her support for abortion rights. That was the case with Joan from the Veterans Center who said she believes in the vice president. I am voting for the future. I'm not voting based on how much I paid for a bag of potatoes at the grocery store. The reality of this is I need potatoes and I'm going to buy them if they're $8 a bag or $2 a bag.

Chasing the Vote is part of the Wall Street Journal's What's News. This episode was produced by Ariana Ospirou and Jess Jupiter. Sound designed by Michael Laval. He also wrote our theme music. Editorial oversight from Joshua Jamerson, Philana Patterson, Ben Pershing, Scott Salloway, and Chris Zinsley. I'm Jimmy Villekind, and I'll be back soon with the last installment of Chasing the Vote.

Thanks for listening. ["Chasing the Vote"] AI may be the most important new computer technology ever, but AI needs a lot of processing speed and that gets expensive fast. Upgrade to the next generation of the cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure or OCI. OCI is the single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. Do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic. Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com slash wall street, oracle.com slash wall street.