The Biden-Harris administration’s signature industrial policy program—supporting investment in new factories, roads, bridges, and other infrastructure and manufacturing projects across the country through government grants, loans, and tax breaks with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS), and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—tested the theory that presidential candidates can reap electoral rewards by delivering good jobs and meaningful economic opportunity for the working class.
This report finds that federal investments in local industrial policy projects were associated with an improvement in county-level vote share for Kamala Harris in 2024 compared with Joe Biden’s county-level vote share in 2020. Furthermore, projects were associated with a decrease in Donald Trump’s county-level vote share in 2024 compared with 2020. However, the vote share differences were slight and far from sufficient to swing the election in Harris’ favor.
The above excerpt was originally published in the Center for American Progress.
Click here to view the full report.