How Harris Can Close the Gap in the Swing States

Kamala Harris has figured out that Donald Trump’s screeds and threats have become background noise—and that responding with vision and policies is more effective than with anger.  It worked remarkably well in last week’s debate, but she still has to close the deal with swing state voters who remain undecided or persuadable. To do that, she should exploit Trump’s liabilities in at least three policy areas where he would withhold critical support for their children and reduce access to medical services for their parents, grandparents, or their own families.

Trump’s position on funding public education is one of his vulnerabilities. It could turn off undecided voters and sway some of his more reluctant supporters.  Under the Biden-Harris administration, federal support for elementary and secondary schools increased by 44 percent, versus Trump, who pushed for deep cuts in federal funding for public schools every year he was president, even during the pandemic.  This year, he promised to defund and abolish the Department of Education, a position fully aligned with Project 2025.

Harris needs to remind swing state parents of Trump‘s record, how much his education cuts could cost their school-age children and the fallout for kids in terms of everything from classroom size to school building repairs.  

Electing Trump jeopardizes federal support for local elementary and secondary schools in the seven swing states, from $2.5 billion annually in North Carolina and $1.8 billion in Pennsylvania to $1.3 billion annually in Wisconsin and Nevada.

Swing states parents will want to know how much Trump’s plan to wind down federal funds for public schools would cost their children, and here are the answers: His cuts would mean annual reductions in educational resources per student of $2,700 in Nevada, $1,620 in North Carolina, $1,580 in Wisconsin, $1,060 in Pennsylvania, $980 in Michigan and Georgia, and $890 per student in Arizona.

The issue could also affect Trump’s vote in the rural parts of those states: His plan would defund 11 federal education programs that support rural schools. Across the swing states, 1,654,000 children attend rural public schools that benefit from these programs. Virtually all the children have one or two parents (and, perhaps, other loved ones of voting age) who could vote this year, so their numbers could easily exceed the 2020 margins in the swing states.

Trump’s Medicare record is another vulnerability that, if properly advertised, could win Harris votes among the program’s 11.3 million beneficiaries in the swing states. Her record on Medicare is proven: the Biden-Harris administration increased access to Medicare and negotiated lower drug prices. As the Democratic nominee, her platform pledges to work to expand and establish coverage for dental, vision, and hearing services.  On the other hand, Trump repeatedly tried to reduce Medicare funding, including provisions in his final budget to cut Medicare services by $484 billion over ten years.

To gauge the potential electoral power of their opposed Medicare positions, let’s assume that 5 percent of Medicare beneficiaries in the swing states are undecided or persuadable, and an ad campaign highlighting Trump’s threat to their medical services could move half of them to Harris.

On this basis, a campaign targeting Trump’s threat to Medicare recipients in the swing states could produce 318,200 additional votes for Harris, including 73,600 in Pennsylvania, 56,100 in Michigan, 55,500 in North Carolina, 48,500 in Georgia, 37,200 in Arizona, 32,800 in Wisconsin, and 15,000 in Nevada. The threat to their benefits could also make some less-committed Trump supporters question their choice since 18 percent of swing state seniors live in rural areas and 38 percent never attended college—fitting the Trump voter demographic.

Trump’s record on Medicaid presents a third opportunity for Harris to move additional swing state voters to her side.  Nearly 74 million Americans depend on Medicaid for healthcare, including 27 million children, 10 million people with disabilities, 2 million veterans, and 5.6 million people in nursing homes or receiving other types of long-term care. 

Some 16 million Americans in swing states rely on Medicaid. The Biden-Harris administration can boast that it streamlined the program’s application process, reduced waiting periods, ended lifetime benefits limits for people with costly chronic conditions, and ended state work requirements. Harris also has pledged to protect the program, increase rural access to hospital care, and expand coverage for maternal health.

The contrast will not help Trump win votes from the program’s recipients in the swing states. Every budget Trump proposed as president pressed for deep cuts in federal funding for Medicaid, ranging from $780 billion to $1.1 trillion over ten years, averaging 20.5 percent of federal support for the program in those years. This should be an especially sensitive issue for groups that have tended to support Trump since the 16 million Medicaid recipients in the swing states include nearly 3 million who live in rural areas and almost 12 million who never attended college.

Harris and her campaign should trumpet the contrasts. And we’ve done the math for the campaign’s ad makers or SuperPACs: The 20.5 percent cut in Medicaid funding proposed by Trump in his budgets would reduce Medicaid services by $1,200 per recipient across the swing states, ranging from $1,700 each in Pennsylvania, $1,510 each in Arizona, $1,170 in Wisconsin, and $1,150 in North Carolina, to $935 each in Nevada and $880 each in Georgia.  

For Harris to seal the deal with swing state voters, the best advice may be to shift Ronald Reagan’s famous question from past to future: Will you be better off with her or Donald Trump four years from now?  She can answer that question with the hard facts about her versus Trump on the resources each would spend to educate children, cover the medical needs of seniors, and ensure healthcare services for tens of millions of children and adults in moderate and lower-income families.

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