US ‘hero voters’ key to Harris win, say top ex-aides who plotted Labour UK victory

Keir Starmer's former pollster, Deborah Mattinson, is to meet Kamala Harris's campaign team in Washington this week to share details of how Labour pulled off its stunning election win by targeting key groups of "squeezed working-class voters who wanted change".

The visit comes ahead of a separate trip by Starmer to Washington on Friday to meet US president Joe Biden, his second since becoming prime minister. It will also be his first since Biden stepped down and Harris became the Democratic nominee.

With the race for the White House on a knife-edge, Mattinson, who stepped down from Starmer's office after the election, and the prime minister's former director of policy, Claire Ainsley, who will also attend the briefings, believe the same strategy that delivered for Labour could play an important role in Harris defeating Donald Trump on 5 November.

Writing in the Observer, Mattinson and Ainsley say many of the concerns of crucial undecided voters will be similar on both of sides of the Atlantic.

"These voters - often past Labour voters - had rejected the party because they believed that it had rejected them. Often Tory voters in 2019, they made up nearly 20% of the electorate. Labour's focus on economic concerns, from affordable housing to job security, won them back.

"For Harris, addressing core issues such as housing, prices and job creation could also win over undecided US middle-class voters, many of whom face similar economic pressures. Labour set about finding out as much as possible about these voters and applying that knowledge to all aspects of campaigning.

"They were patriotic, they were family oriented, they were struggling with the cost of living: squeezed working-class voters who wanted change."