With interest in populist economic policies surging ahead of the Nov. 3 elections, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is embarking on a 20-state road trip to urge voters to reject socialism and embrace capitalism as the “best pathway to opportunity and prosperity.”
The sprawling bus tour, dubbed the “Free Enterprise Express,” departs this weekend for stops in Pennsylvania and New York to support Republican candidates in three of the most competitive House districts in the country.
Over the next six weeks, staff from the Chamber, the nation’s largest business advocacy group, plan to visit 18 other states with competitive House and Senate elections, including Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio and Texas.
All told, the Chamber plans to promote more than 30 candidates who it says share its commitment to free markets, part of a multiyear, “nine-figure” effort “to ensure that free enterprise remains the foundation for both growth and opportunity in the United States,” Chamber president and CEO Suzanne Clark told reporters Friday.
While most of the Chamber’s preferred candidates are Republican, a few are Democrats, including Rep. Tom Suozzi (New York), who has launched a separate pro-capitalism initiative to oppose socialist candidates in the Democratic Party.
“As Americans feel challenges, they seem to look for other solutions. We can’t let that happen,” Clark said. “This is a time for choosing. … We have to have a new fight for free enterprise.”
Americans remain more positive about capitalism than socialism, according to long-term analyses by Gallup, but positive impressions of capitalism have been slipping in recent years, especially among Democrats and independents.
Meanwhile, Democrats’ interest in socialism has been rising, especially among young people. Nearly half of people aged 18 to 29 in a recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll said they would consider voting for a democratic socialist for president, compared with a third of people over 65.
That shift has been evident in recent elections. Last November, Zohran Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the country, won the New York mayor’s race on a promise to tax the rich and provide free services, like child care and public transit. More recently, an array of progressive candidates have won hotly contested Democratic primaries and are now duking it out with Republicans.
Among them: Epidemiologist Abdul El-Sayed is competing for an open U.S. Senate seat in Michigan on a platform that includes expanding eligibility for Medicare, the federal health program for the elderly, to all Americans. And college professor Randy Villegas is competing for a newly drawn U.S. House seat in California’s Central Valley on a promise to tax the “ultra rich” and fight for universal child care, as well as Medicare-for-all.
Clark said the country “woke up” this summer to the DSA, which advocates for public ownership of the largest corporations and increased taxes on the wealthiest people and companies. The DSA argues that Americans are waking up to the realization that the country’s economic system is rigged against them.
“Capitalism is working perfectly — it is only by design, placing profits always above human lives, that it’s become an ideal system for the 1%,” DSA spokeswoman Priscilla Yeverino said in a statement to The Washington Post. “American labor is the source of all American wealth and we are confident people will no longer buy propaganda to preserve the status quo for the ultrarich.”
On its website, the Chamber acknowledges that “Americans are facing real challenges. The cost of living remains too high. Homeownership is out of reach for too many families. Health care remains expensive and difficult to navigate. And many people are questioning whether the next generation will have greater opportunities than the last. … We cannot take for granted that people see the connection between free enterprise and progress in their own lives.”
“Free enterprise isn’t perfect,” Clark said. “But it is the best at getting better.”
To make that case, the Chamber plans to have roundtable conversations with local voters and community leaders across each state. In those forums, Clark said, the Chamber hopes to surface the economic challenges people are facing and explain why unconstrained businesses, not government, can solve those problems by driving economic growth and responding quickly to market needs.
While the tour is aimed primarily at combating left-leaning populism, the nation’s business leaders are also spooked by “the horseshoe” of populists on the right and left, Clark said.
President Donald Trump has pursued an array of populist ideas, including promising every American adult a $5,000 check if Republicans retain control of Congress in November, limiting stock buybacks by defense contractors and taking a government stake in major companies like Intel.
“There are plenty of people in the administration who understand business and are terrific partners to us,” Clark said. But in many cases, she added, “we are either having quiet conversations or loud conversations about the role of free enterprise and markets in the American economy.”
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