DEMS/ELECTION/JOBS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Chuck Knissel, a fourth-generation coal miner from small-town West Virginia, was dismayed when Hillary Clinton told a group of Ohio voters in 2016 she planned ‘to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business’ if elected president — a comment Clinton later said she regretted more than any other on the campaign trail. So when Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden declared at a primary debate this summer that he would eliminate fossil fuels, coal and fracking as president, Knissel said he ‘couldn’t believe what I was seeing.’ The Trump campaign hopes to seize on that kind of discomfort among disaffected workers — whether coal miners or striking General Motors employees — in its bid for reelection. The president found Reagan-like support with blue-collar workers in 2016, but needs to further dominate the union vote next fall to compensate for the suburban slump he’s already facing. Right now, he is banking on a strong economy to do that — saying current economic conditions preserve jobs that might otherwise be threatened by automation and environmental regulations under a Democratic administration — even as many of the workers he’s after are suffering through a manufacturing slowdown under the weight of his trade war.”
–Gabby Orr, “Trump hopes to seize a core Democratic voting bloc,” Politico, September 18, 2019 12:54 pm