Can Trump repeat his 2016 victory by rallying working-class voters?

The McDonald’s restaurant in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, was closed. But across the street, a crowd of hundreds had gathered, hoping for a peek at what was unfolding inside.

There, former United States President Donald Trump had traded his usual suit jacket for an oversized, yellow-trimmed apron – and a photo opportunity.

He loomed over the deep fryer. He salted the fries. And he passed the finished product out of the drive-through window to a line of pre-screened customers in cars, cameras clicking all the while.

“Now I’ve worked [at McDonald’s] for 15 minutes more than Kamala,” Trump said, taking a jab at his rival in the 2024 presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris, who worked at the fast-food chain as a student.

But the stunt was more than just an opportunity to troll his opponent. It was also Trump’s latest overture to a key part of the US electorate: the working class.

As the US’s middle class shrinks, working-class and low-income people make up a growing share of voters. The percentage of people considered low-income has increased from 27 percent in 1971 to 30 percent in 2023, according to the Pew Research Center.

Both major-party candidates are appealing to this demographic in the final days before the November 5 election. But experts say the billionaire Republican Trump continues to have an advantage among working-class voters, who see him as a beacon of prosperity.

When a 2023 poll by the Progressive Policy Institute asked working-class voters to select the president who had done the most for working families over the past 30 years, Trump was the clear winner.

Forty-four percent of respondents chose him, while only 12 percent picked current President Joe Biden.

“It’s deeply, deeply ironic,” said Bertrall Ross, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. “He has not lived his life in a pro-working class, pro-lower income way. And yet, he’s presenting himself as a champion of the working class and lower income individuals.”

Supporters of former US President Donald Trump line the road near a McDonald’s where the candidate posed for a photo opportunity behind the counter in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania [Evan Vucci/AP Photo]

Son of a real estate empire

Even at the McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, Trump reportedly dodged questions about whether he supported increasing the minimum wage — a policy that would likely help fast-food workers.

Trump is the scion of a real estate empire, inherited from his late father, Fred Trump. His public persona is built on his image as a successful businessman.

He played the role of a boardroom titan in the reality show The Apprentice and has spoken publicly about firing workers and keeping wages low.

“I know a lot about overtime. I hated to give overtime. I hated it,” he told a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, in September. “I shouldn’t say this. But I’d get other people in. I wouldn’t pay.”

Still, even while embracing the gold-plated aesthetic of a high-flying businessman, Trump has also curried favour with his base of non-college-educated, working-class voters.

Experts say his strategy is to style himself as one of them. In October, for instance, he told a barbershop in the Bronx, “You guys are the same as me. It’s the same stuff. We were born the same way.”

Ross, the law professor, said the strength of Trump’s support among the working class goes beyond the current election cycle.

“It’s hard to pinpoint the source of the strength and potentially growing strength [but] the emotional appeal has always been there,” Ross told Al Jazeera.

He traces it back to Trump’s first successful bid for the presidency, when the businessman was considered a dark horse in a crowded Republican field.

“He’s had this advantage since he first ran in 2016,” Ross said. “That advantage is still there and, arguably, might even be stronger in this election than it was in 2016 and 2020.”

Former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters through a drive-through window at the McDonald’s in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, a key swing state [Evan Vucci/AP Photo]

Harnessing ‘resentment’

Trump failed to win his re-election bid in 2020, losing to Biden, a Democrat and former vice president.

His rival this election cycle is Biden’s second-in-command, Harris. Since entering the race in July, Harris has emphasised her middle-class upbringing while reminding voters that Trump was “handed $400m on a silver platter” by his father.

Like Trump, she has publicly supported policies geared towards low-income voters, including offering a child tax credit and lifting taxes on tips.

However, Harris has struggled with working-class voters, many of whom work in manual labour, service industries or on contracts.

For example, in September, she failed to gain the endorsement of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a prominent labour union that backed Biden in 2020.

The Teamsters opted instead to give no endorsement, in a prominent break with tradition: The union had endorsed Democratic presidential candidates since 2000.

Working-class voters have peeled away from the Democratic Party in recent decades, according to Jared Abbott, the director of the Center for Working Class Politics, a US-based research institution.

He explained that many feel the party has neglected issues like globalisation that have led to millions of lost jobs, especially in the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

“They’ve been the party of trying to maintain a social safety net, sure, but [they are] also the party of supporting free trade and neoliberal policies that have really hurt a lot of working people,” Abbott said.

“The feeling of resentment and a sense of betrayal has come home to roost, essentially, in the form of Trump.”

That sense of betrayal is further boosted by the challenges of accessing accurate information.

Ross explained that the polarised media landscape — and the spread of misinformation on social media — make it difficult to tell fact from fiction, especially for voters who have had little access to education.

While lower-income voters are less likely to vote on average, Ross said Trump has persuaded them that the system is rigged against them. Trump has often credited widespread election fraud with his defeat in 2020, a false assertion.

“That message has broken through quite effectively with respect to less engaged voters, because, frankly, the system hasn’t served those voters particularly well,” he said.

Many states, for instance, do not require employers to give workers time off to vote on Election Day. And there is no federal law mandating companies to do so.

With long lines at polling stations, many vulnerable workers simply cannot spare the time. Strict voter identification laws, meanwhile, can place a burden on those who cannot afford the cost of obtaining such documentation.

The perception of being elite

Ross also pointed to another hurdle Democrats like Harris face in harnessing public perception: Low-income voters may view Harris as a member of the political elite.

While Harris has frequently touted her middle-class childhood in Oakland, California, she now lives in Brentwood, an affluent area of Los Angeles.

She and her husband Doug Emhoff are estimated to be worth millions, based on government disclosures she made.

Trump himself is purported to have billions in assets. But Ross explained that Harris’s political career as a state attorney general, senator and vice president may lead to perceptions that she is part of the political elite.

“She has established herself as a member of the political and national elite in the United States, in a way that has raised a barrier to those individuals who may benefit from the policies she’s proposing if they were ever enacted into law,” Ross said.

As a result, he added, they “still cannot see her as one of them”.

During her presidential campaign, Harris has proposed policy solutions aimed at the middle class, including government support for down payments and small businesses.

Ross believes those will appeal to low-income voters, who prefer to see themselves as middle class.

But he noted that low-income voters have heard the same promises from Democrats before and have not necessarily seen results.

“Economic mobility is much less than it has been in the past,” Ross said. “So it’s becoming a tougher sell for Democrats putting out these policies to appeal to low-income voters.”

Economy a strength

The economy will also be a major factor for working-class voters this election, experts told Al Jazeera — and it is an issue that also tilts in Trump’s favour.

Harris has promised to help the “sandwich generation”: those middle-aged adults who must care for both children and ageing parents at the same time.

Part of her plan is to have the government insurance programme Medicare cover costs for home health aids and to expand the tax credit for families with children.

In response to higher rents, she has also pledged to fight “abusive corporate landlords”.

Trump, meanwhile, has proposed temporarily capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent and making interest paid on car loans tax deductible. He also said that he would support a tax credit for family caregivers who assist parents or loved ones, although he did not give details.

Both candidates have addressed the high cost of groceries as well, which spiked due to a rise in inflation and higher prices set by grocery chains.

Trump has blamed the Biden-Harris administration for the costs, while Harris has pointed the finger at corporations, promising to ban price-gouging on groceries.

Like many Americans, Abbott said he is “always shocked” by prices at the grocery store.

Consumer reports indicate that price increases for food have levelled off since the peak of 10 percent in 2022. But prices are still growing, at a rate of 2.3 percent over the last year.

For Abbott, the continued increases in grocery costs work to Trump’s advantage.

“Even though the economy is doing better in many objective senses than it was a couple years ago, poll after poll shows that voters still think Trump’s better on the economy than the Democrats, and they still blame Biden and Harris for the very high rates of inflation,” Abbott said.

“So even if Trump is just doubling down on [bringing out his base], the economic headwinds are doing a lot of the rest of the work for him.”

For his part, Ross noted that many people who are struggling financially may not remember what the economy was like four years ago under Trump, who falsely claimed that his was the best economy in history.

Many experts say Trump’s efforts to place tariffs on overseas competitors like China translated to higher costs for US consumers.

Immigration in the spotlight

Nevertheless, Trump has used the fear of foreign adversaries to position himself as a champion for US economic prosperity.

One of his primary targets remains undocumented immigrants, a group which featured prominently in his successful 2016 presidential bid. Trump has repeatedly made false and nativist claims linking the country’s economic struggles to their presence.

“They’re taking over our country. You see what they’re doing?” Trump told a North Carolina rally in September. “They’re taking your jobs. Every job produced over the last two years has gone to illegal aliens.”

Will Marshall, the president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute, a US-based think tank, said Trump’s messaging on immigration could possibly win over working-class voters yet again.

“The message on immigration resonates with these voters. They think illegal immigration is a bad thing. It’s out of control. It’s an economic threat to working people’s wages, to their jobs,” Marshall said.

“And so much of his message is really calibrated to exploit the discontents and unhappiness of non-college voters, working-class voters.”

In fact, Trump’s immigration proposals would weaken the financial system, Marshall said. “His plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants here abruptly is also going to wreak havoc on the US economy.”

Ross also pointed out that Trump is increasingly tailoring his anti-immigrant message to non-white voters, with false claims that immigrants are taking their jobs.

“Kamala Harris’s border invasion is also crushing the jobs and wages of African American workers and Hispanic American workers and also union members. Unions are next, you watch,” Trump said at that same North Carolina rally.

Ross explained that Trump knows that African American and Latino voters are no monolith and is exploiting class divisions within these groups.

“He has tapped into that to secure the support of members of African Americans and Latinos at a level we haven’t seen in a while,” Ross said.

Those attempts appear to be paying dividends, according to pre-election surveys. A poll released by the news agency Reuters and the research firm Ipsos found that Trump had increased his support among Hispanic men, a group that traditionally leaned towards Democrats.

He now pulls 44 percent support to Harris’s 46 percent.

A similar trend has been observed among Black male voters. A poll from The New York Times and Siena College found that Trump pulled the support of 15 percent of likely Black voters — a statistic that is even higher among just Black men, at 20 percent.

Nevertheless, the presidential race remains in a dead heat, with Harris and Trump virtually tied.

Abbott said that while the polls do not indicate a clear winner, Trump has the possibility of recreating his 2016 victory, particularly with the help of the working class.

Abbott pointed to a recent poll of Pennsylvania voters by the Center for Working Class Politics that found that Harris’s messaging on Trump as a threat to democracy may turn off voters in that state.

“There’s no doubt that he can win this election,” he said.

“And the way that Harris’s messaging is going at this point, is in a direction that seems to move away from what would be most effective if she were really trying to consolidate support, or at least stop the bleeding among working-class voters in some of these post-industrial swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.”