Pennsylvania is the ultimate battleground for 2024, with the White House, Senate, and House all poised to flip based on how voters here cast their ballots. In this series, Pining for Pennsylvania: Unlocking the crucial Keystone State, the Washington Examiner will look at the demographics, politics, and key areas that have made Pennsylvania the must-watch state of the year. Part seven, below, looks at how the sale of an iconic steel company is factoring into the presidential race.
The acquisition of U.S. Steel by Japanese company Nippon Steel is looming large over western Pennsylvania, an essential voting bloc in the pivotal swing state heading into the 2024 general election.
The quintessential American steel company, based in Pittsburgh, is a dominating economic and cultural force in the region, and the acquisition could shake voter confidence depending upon what actions the Biden administration takes to mitigate the potentially negative consequences for the regional economy.
U.S. Steel announced the international acquisition in December, with the deal expected to close in the second or third quarter of 2024 pending the approval of shareholders. Earlier this month, the shareholders overwhelmingly voted in support of the acquisition, valued at approximately $14.1 billion.
Executive power to thwart the acquisition
Both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden have sharply criticized the acquisition and supported increasing tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum as an effort to protect domestic manufacturing jobs.
Trump said in January that the acquisition was “so terrible” and that he would “block it instantaneously” if he were in Biden’s shoes.
Biden pledged that U.S. Steel would remain “American-owned, American-operated by American union steelworkers” to supporters at an invitation-only event last week at the United Steelworkers building in downtown Pittsburgh.
At the event, Biden also announced plans to triple existing steel tariffs on China. Trump, by contrast, has supported raising steel and aluminum tariffs on all importers across the board by 10%, which is estimated to shrink the economy by 1.1% if implemented.
John Linarelli, Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law specializing in comparative commercial law, told the Washington Examiner that Biden has mirrored Trump’s nativist industrial policy, signaling that the bases of both parties have shifted away from the zeal for free trade at the beginning of the 21st century.
“It’s an interesting time because in the ’90s, in the early 2000s, it was all focused on open trade, open borders, everybody’s getting better off, and we’re sort of retracting from this and trying to retool our trade relationships and our laws,” Linarelli said. “There’s much more state direction in the economy to kind of support state success in key technological sectors.”
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, a branch of the Treasury Department, is reviewing the details of the acquisition to ensure that the deal would be within U.S. national security interests.
What constitutes national security interests has steadily expanded under both the Trump and Biden administrations to include economic and technological security.
“It’s not political. It’s a standard that has to be applied,” Linarelli said, noting that neither Biden nor Trump could manipulate the committee’s rules entirely to their whim. “[The committee] hasn’t gone outside of its statutory bounds.”
Nippon’s acquisition agreement with U.S. Steel also needs to be approved by the Justice Department to ensure that it is not violating any other antitrust legislation.
It’s the economy, stupid
James Lee of Susquehanna Polling and Research, based in the Keystone State’s capital city of Harrisburg, told the Washington Examiner that the issue could be leveraged by either candidate to secure a victory in the western counties of Pennsylvania, but Trump is so far doing significantly better than Biden in courting the region.
“The optics of this are that this happened on Biden’s watch,” Lee said. “I think anything like this really adds salt to the wound and probably benefits Trump more than Biden.”
The acquisition could affect western Pennsylvania more than any other area in the state not only because of regional pride in the steel industry but also because voters there are more sensitive to economic shifts than in any other part of the state.
“Jobs and the economy always ranked No. 1 as the most important issue facing Southwestern Pennsylvania, higher than any other issue. When we poll in other areas of the state, we don’t see that same dynamic,” Lee said. “I think there you could see a real rebound effect from voters at the polls.”
Key to the Keystone State
Swing voters in the southwest of Pennsylvania tend to be culturally conservative Democrats who keep electing Republicans as the national party moves further progressive.
“These are Western Pennsylvanians who grew up in Democratic families, registered Democratic because of ties to the steel or coal or labor markets … but grew up believing in God, country, and guns,” Lee wrote in a RealClearPolitics article earlier this month following recent polling showing Trump in a slight lead in the region.
Lee told the Washington Examiner that even noncommitted voters in the western portion of the state are “very, very vulnerable to conspiracy theories.”
“The Trump dynamic is very powerful out there,” Lee said.
Voter turnout for all of western Pennsylvania, from Lake Erie to the southern border with West Virginia, is consistently higher than counties in the center and east of the state, making the region an important stronghold for the Trump campaign.
Although the former president is not out-performing his 2016 numbers in polls in the western counties against his former challenger, Hillary Clinton, Trump is still leading the region except for in Allegheny County, which is dominated by an increasingly left-leaning city center.
Whether or not western Pennsylvania will be enough to counteract Trump’s poor showing in the suburban counties surrounding Philadelphia will be a decisive factor in the general election. The degree to which the Nippon acquisition will galvanize this key group of voters also remains to be seen.
“I don’t think you have necessarily clear-cut winners and losers on this issue,” Lee said. “Is this a single-issue vote? It’s hard to really determine whether an issue like this will be top of mind for people when they cast their ballots in November because it’s hard to see how it’s going to play out over the intervening months.”
Feelings on the ground
Prominent local Democrat Kellianne Frketic told the Washington Examiner that she was disappointed Biden did not spend more time at the USW event this month directly addressing the acquisition because of how important U.S. Steel is to the identity of the region.
“I thought he’d talk a little bit more about it,” Frketic said immediately following Biden’s April 17 speech. “My personal opinion is that I think it should stay in U.S. hands.”
Frketic is running for local office in Elizabeth Township, a mill town in Allegheny County less than 10 miles from the U.S. Steel Clariton Mill Works plant along the Monongahela River. She said that residents in her community deeply care about U.S. Steel staying American-owned and operated.
“I think that the people around the mills want to keep it here,” Frketic said. “That’s the consensus I get from whenever I talk to folks.”
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When asked, Pittsburgh-based supporters of the president invited to represent union interests at the event told the Washington Examiner that Biden’s legacy as the most pro-union president in U.S. history would carry him with workers in the region despite the acquisition.
“Biden has a better track record with labor and working on behalf of organizing, which is good for workers,” said Melinda Ciccocioppo, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh who attended the event. “If workers are concerned about that, Biden has clearly demonstrated a better track record.”
