At a rally in Erie, Pa., last weekend, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont laid out a bleak vision to voters.
“Working-class people are angry. And some of them are thinking about Trump,” he said, ticking off a litany of economic statistics. “The current system is broken!”
Mr. Sanders recounted tales of families living paycheck to paycheck, and described elites and the status quo as “disgraceful” and “disgusting.” He grew louder as he talked about the ravages of addictions to alcohol and opioids, reaching a shout as he got to what he called the worst addiction of all: “It’s greed!”
The crowd roared in agreement.
On the campaign trail on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Sanders is embracing a dark tone in his outreach to frustrated working-class voters, giving voice to a grimly populist message that contrasts with her campaign’s upbeat optimism.
Mr. Sanders has stumped across swing states for months, and the 83-year-old independent said in an interview that with the campaign’s end in sight, he planned to hold rallies through Election Day. His fiery speeches aim to win over voters leaning toward former President Donald J. Trump by acknowledging working-class anger over the economy. Short of that, he hopes to motivate reliable Democratic voters to turn out.
“Workers’ rights are on the table,” Mr. Sanders said. “That’s something I can’t sit out, so I will do everything I can to see that Trump is defeated and Harris is elected.”
Mr. Trump has long stoked working-class furor over what he terms a Washington elite putting down the Everyman and trying to keep Mr. Trump, a billionaire, out of the White House. He often calls the United States “a failing nation.” The playlist at his rallies invariably features “Rich Men North of Richmond,” a working-class lament that topped the charts last year, and prompts his crowds to sing along.
Ms. Harris and her allies have courted working-class voters, and she has secured the support of most major labor organizations, running in large part on President Biden’s record as what he calls the most pro-union president in history. But despite the Democrats’ wellspring of union support, some labor groups like the Teamsters have declined to endorse Ms. Harris, and many working-class voters, first animated by Mr. Trump in 2016, have retreated from the Democratic ranks over the perception that the party has grown out of touch with them.
A New York Times/Siena College poll this month found Ms. Harris’s support from white, non-college-educated voters nearly tied with the group’s support for President Biden in a 2020 election exit poll. But a CNN analysis suggested that, compared with Democratic candidates in the last three presidential elections, she could draw the smallest share of union household votes.
Mr. Sanders’s references to life under the ruling class led Rita Macomber, an Erie rallygoer and Harris supporter, to describe the Vermont senator with a phrase often applied to Mr. Trump: “He tells it like it is.”
Josh Boring, a 40-year-old member of the machinists’ union who attended the rally in Erie, said there was overlap between Mr. Sanders’s message and the energy behind Mr. Trump, which Democrats could use to their advantage. “I know a lot of people that are voting for Trump that actually like Bernie Sanders,” he said. “People on the left and Harris, they feel that anger and want to help with it.”
Mr. Sanders’s progressive reputation left some swing voters doubtful about his impact.
William Matlock, a 73-year-old former union worker at a locomotive plant, attended Mr. Sanders’s rally on Saturday and said he was already planning to vote for Ms. Harris. He described himself as a Trump-skeptical Republican with moderate political views, but said Mr. Sanders wasn’t a compelling surrogate.
“He’s a socialist and all that, so we really have not that much in common,” Mr. Matlock said, adding that he might leave to see a rally with Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Mr. Trump’s running mate, which took place around the same time in Erie. “That’s such a great weapon against her, you know? ‘Oh yeah, this communist over here, he’s voting for her.’”
But even if Mr. Sanders’s views limit his appeal in some areas, there are signs his message is amplified nationally, including to progressives who were among the most vocal to support his past presidential campaigns. The rally in Erie earned more than 800,000 views on X, and Mr. Sanders usually attracts hundreds of attendees in small, industrial cities, making his campaign events comparable in size to many held by the vice-presidential candidates. (Mr. Sanders is himself running for re-election.)
To longtime Sanders supporters, his focus on the economic divide will sound familiar.
“Where we are today is a nation moving rapidly in the direction of oligarchy,” Mr. Sanders said in an October rally in Baraboo, Wis. “That is where we are heading, unless together we reverse that course.”
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