US election campaign: Harris can also say “America first”

Labor Day, der Tag der Arbeit, der in Amerika am ersten Montag im September begangen wird, markiert in Wahljahren den Auftakt zur heißen Wahlkampfphase. Kamala Harris traf dazu zunächst Gewerkschaftsmitglieder in Detroit, dem Zentrum der amerikanischen Automobilindustrie. Dann flog sie weiter nach Pittsburgh, in die alte Stahlarbeitermetropole. Michigan und Pennsylvania sind zwei wichtige Swingstates, welche die Präsidentschaftskandidatin der Demokraten im November gewinnen muss.

Auf der Kundgebung in Pittsburgh wurde Harris von Joe Biden begleitet. Aktuelle Botschaft der beiden: US Steel, die Ikone der Stahlproduzenten im Land, solle amerikanisch bleiben – und nicht von Japanern übernommen werden. „America first“ können die Demokraten auch. Harris‘ Wahlkampfteam setzt mit dem gemeinsamen Auftritt das Zeichen, dass sich die Vizepräsidentin nach Bidens Verzicht auf eine abermalige Kandidatur nicht vom Amtsinhaber distanziert. Sie will den Präsidenten vielmehr punktuell für ihre Kampagne einsetzen – dort, wo er ihr helfen kann. Biden, der in Pennsylvania geboren wurde und in der weißen Arbeiterschaft populärer ist als Harris, war es 2020 gelungen, den Bundesstaat, den Donald Trump vier Jahre zuvor hatte gewinnen konnte, zurückzuerobern.

In Umfragen liegt Harris in Pennsylvania im Schnitt knapp vor Trump. 19 Stimmen werden hier für das Electoral College vergeben – die meisten im alten Rostgürtel Amerikas. Der Vorsprung liegt allerdings innerhalb der statistischen Fehlermarge. Zudem deuten die Befragungen an, dass die Demokraten seit dem Kandidatenwechsel zwar aufholen konnten – der Parteitag in Chicago Mitte August aber keinen weiteren Schub brachte.

Harris’ advisers are urging caution these days. Campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote in a memo at the weekend that people should not be mistaken: they are entering the final phase of the election campaign as a “clear underdog”. Dillon was still leading Biden’s re-election campaign until a few weeks ago. Before his disastrous TV debate with Trump, she appeared confident and said that they would win the election. So why this modesty now?

The answer is obvious. Under Biden, the campaign manager was concerned with talking the Democrats out of defeatism. Now it is about warning against overconfidence. Complacency would certainly be out of place given Hillary Clinton’s experience eight years ago. But Harris is not an outsider: her campaign coffers are well filled and she has 2,000 campaign staff in 312 offices across the country – far more than Trump.

The Republican has recently appeared increasingly nervous – and his election campaign has also disturbed parts of his own party. It started with him ignoring the advice of senior members of Congress to refrain from personal attacks on Harris. Then he sent programmatically contradictory messages.

Last week, when asked how he felt about the initiative in Florida to allow abortions until the fetus is viable, he said he would vote for more than six weeks. The state recently introduced a six-week limit. The basis for this was the Supreme Court’s decision two years ago to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which had prohibited states from banning abortions before the fetus is viable. The current limit in Florida, where Trump resides, is too short, the candidate said. A day later, he corrected himself. Now he said he would vote against the initiative. The reason given was that the Democrats were “radical”. He then falsely claimed that the party wanted to allow abortions up to the ninth month of pregnancy.

Trump keeps wavering on the abortion issue. On the one hand, he celebrated the Supreme Court ruling, which he made possible by nominating three conservative constitutional judges during his term in office. On the other hand, he acknowledged that the consequences of the ruling could cost Republicans votes in elections – which proved true in the 2022 congressional elections. In the meantime, Trump has begun to relativize his position: he has always only wanted the federal states to be able to regulate the issue. In this way, he wants to downplay the consequences of the ruling: almost two dozen states have since tightened their regulations. The background to this is that the abortion debate is damaging Republicans, especially among the female electorate.

Trump’s attempt to appear more moderate on the issue has drawn the ire of Christian conservatives. Referring to the assassination attempt on the Republican, Jason Rapert, president of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, said that God may have protected Trump from a bullet, but not from wavering on the abortion issue and supporting a policy that leads to the killing of unborn children.

Harris has made the issue the focus of her election campaign. Democrat Elizabeth Warren, Senator from Massachusetts, recently put it this way: Trump thinks women are stupid. He obviously thinks he can serve his extreme voter base and then turn around and lie to the majority of Americans. That won’t work.