The 2024 US presidential elections will be decided by a wire. This is why both gladiators, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, do not want to lose the attention and votes of any group they can attract. For the Democratic candidate, the electorate, which comes from Central and Eastern Europe and especially Poles, who live in the swing states of the Rust Belt, appears to play a decisive role.
The Democrats were the first to try to “woo” the Poles in America, recalls Foreign Policy. In her debate with Donald Trump, Harris did not miss the opportunity to challenge Trump to tell the 800,000 Polish-American voters in Pennsylvania where he would stand if Russia wanted to expand its war front. “If Trump returns to power, he will sell Ukraine and put the rest of Europe at risk, starting with Poland,” he warned.
Trump’s return
But Trump has recently made a comeback that could cost Harris critical states and, ultimately, her election. Everyone in the Democratic camp remembers that Hillary Clinton received almost 3 million more votes nationally (a 2-point difference compared to Trump), but when she lost the swing states, she fell behind in the electoral votes and lost the presidency. Polls show Harris is at the same risk. The specter of Hilary (or rather, Hilary’s suffering) looms ominously over Kamala.
Donald Trump also opened up to Poles. “Poland will always be safe as long as I am president, I can assure you of that. And Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if I were president,” he recently argued in a speech. After all, Poles embrace conservative values, which Trump also frequently invokes. “I will defend God, religion, family, and freedom against Harris’ “socialist” and “communist” ideas,” is his message to them, and it hits a raw nerve.
And the need for a new narrative
Arguing that Trump will abandon Poland and Ukraine to their fate is not enough for Harris. To convince Polish voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania (he claims he needs to), he will have to explain what he will do differently than Biden in the Russia-Ukraine war to prevent innocent lives from being lost.
Polish-American votes helped Jimmy Carter against Gerald Ford during a 1976 debate, after Ford’s gaffe helped secure the White House for the Democrats. “There is no Soviet rule in Eastern Europe,” Ford said during the debate. “I don’t believe that Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union.” Although the majority of Poles voted for Republican Nixon in 1972, they chose Democrat Carter by 60% to 40% in 1976.
Today it is estimated that more than 8.2 million people in the United States have Polish ancestry. Although electoral analysis sometimes tends not to separate certain categories of voters (including “white” voters), the way white ethnicities vote is often fundamental. Although the Polish-American community is not as cohesive as it once was, its strength should not be underestimated, notes FP.