PPI's Progress Report: What Keir Starmer’s victory means for Kamala Harris

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Progress Report

News, events, and must-read analysis from the Progressive Policy Institute.

What Keir Starmer’s victory means for Kamala Harris

By Will Marshall
Founder and President of the Progressive Policy Institute
for The Hill

Vice President Kamala Harris has righted her party’s capsized ship and opened a small but consistent lead over Donald Trump in national polls. Now comes the decisive test: Charting a winning course in the Electoral College.

To attain a majority of 270 votes or more, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), must carry at least three, and in some scenarios four of the seven battleground states. All look like dead heats today.

They can count on a strong turnout by a reenergized Democratic base, but that won’t be enough. You can’t win swing states without winning swing voters. The campaigns are spending prodigiously in these states to sway roughly 3 million voters who tell pollsters they’ve yet to make up their minds.

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Forward

NEW PPI REPORT

The 2024 UK General Election was extraordinary, with Keir Starmer’s Labour Party securing a sweeping victory. But beneath the celebration lies a critical divide: Labour dominated the graduate vote, yet it lagged behind among non-graduates, an electorate that remains pivotal to long-term success. If Labour wants to sustain its victory — and if Democrats in the U.S. hope to learn from it — there is work to be done.

The report uses polling data collected in the run up to the UK election to demonstrate that Labour must address the needs of working-class voters if it is to maintain its electoral strength.

READ THE FULL REPORT

New from the Experts

Claire Ainsley, Director of PPI's Project on Center-Left Renewal: ‘Why Labour needs to be the champion for non-graduates too’
⮕ LabourList

Tamar Jacoby, Director of PPI's New Ukraine Project: AI is reshaping drone warfare in Russia and Ukraine
⮕ New York Post

Bruno Manno, PPI Senior Advisor and Director of What Works Lab: Earn-and-Learn Education
⮕ National Affairs

Bruno Manno: The “Saving Grace” Of Today’s Community Colleges
⮕ Forbes

'Adult money' and no college debt: Harris and Trump back alternative routes to good jobs, ft. Will Marshall, PPI President
⮕ USA Today

Trade Fact of the Week: Is U.S. income inequality starting to decline?
⮕ PPI’s Trade Fact of the Week

Ukraine Isn’t Ready for the Pro-Putin GOP

By Tamar Jacoby
Director of PPI's New Ukraine Project
for The xxxxxx

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a couple of unforced errors in the last few weeks. They were all small things, the kind of missteps we all make occasionally, and even on the world stage, they might have gone unnoticed. But the Ukrainian leader had no idea what he was up against—a Republican party determined to turn him and the global conflict in Ukraine into this cycle’s political football.

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Forward

Don't Miss These Reports From PPI's Campaign for Working America

Listen Up

Facing the Future
A Radically Pragmatic Plan to Pay for Progress,
ft. Ben Ritz

Ben Ritz joined the Concord Coalition's Facing the Future Podcast to talk about PPI's comprehensive plan released in July to greatly improve the nation's fiscal outlook by cutting costs, raising revenues and growing the economy.

Staff Spotlight: Alex Kilander

Policy Analyst, Center for Funding America's Future
Alex Kilander is a Policy Analyst with PPI's Center for Funding America’s Future, which develops fiscally responsible policy proposals to strengthen public investments in the foundation of our economy, modernize health and retirement programs to reflect an aging society, transform our tax code to reward work over wealth, and put the national debt on a downward trajectory.

Prior to joining PPI, Alex worked at the Treasury Department in the Office of the Secretary. His role there focused on managing the Secretary's daily briefing materials for a diverse set of issues within Treasury's jurisdiction. Before Treasury, Alex served as a staffer for the House Appropriations Committee and as a Research Assistant for the National Institute for Early Education Research.

Alex graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts in Public and International Affairs, where he wrote a thesis on the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit's implementation.

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