Impact Of Pentagon Weapons Spending On Jobs (And Votes) In Four Battleground States

If recent voting patterns persist, November’s presidential election is likely to be decided by results in a handful of battleground states. Because the electoral college aggregates outcomes by state rather than nationally, a small number of voters in a few states that are up for grabs—often called “swing states”—can determine who the next president will be.

That was the key to Donald Trump’s upset win in 2016. Trump didn’t need to win the popular vote because his support was stronger than his opponent’s in states such as Florida and Pennsylvania that drove which candidate would command the most presidential electors. States that reliably vote for one party or the other effectively canceled each other out in the tallies, leaving a few battleground states to decide the winner.

Political sentiment in such states is often so evenly split that small things can have big consequences. Statewide elections in Florida, including presidential ones, are often decided by only 1% of the vote (or less). It wouldn’t take much to shift the majority of votes cast from one party to the other—a chance remark, an unexpected disclosure, a big contract award.

Pentagon weapons spending can potentially play such a role. Major program awards can be worth billions of dollars and generate thousands of jobs within a state. For instance, the Navy recently selected a struggling Wisconsin shipyard to build a future class of frigates, potentially transforming that yard into a reliable source of jobs for decades to come. The Trump White House lost little time in taking credit.

Common sense suggests that voters employed in making weapons are likely to favor continued spending on those weapons. That is especially true today, with many commercial sectors of the economy having undergone major contractions due to the coronavirus pandemic. Weapons producers have continued hiring during the pandemic, underscoring their role as an economic mainstay—and a significant force in electoral politics.

Against that backdrop, what follows is a brief description of the role weapons spending plays in four battleground states likely to play an outsized role in deciding the 2020 presidential election.

Arizona. The fast-growing state of Arizona used to be viewed as reliably Republican in its voting behavior, but recent Democratic wins of congressional contests have convinced many observers that the state could go either way in the presidential race this year. Arizona has been a center of weapons research and production since Motorola built a military R&D center there in 1948. In 1951, Hughes Aircraft constructed what would eventually become the biggest missile plant in the world at Tucson, and other big military contractors like General Dynamics
GD
and Honeywell have a major presence in the state.

The biggest weapons maker by far in Arizona is Raytheon Technologies
RTX
, which through a series of mergers ended up operating the much-expanded missile plant at Tucson. That by itself makes Raytheon the biggest employer in the southern part of the state, with 13,000 workers already employed and thousands more being added. Raytheon has 500 suppliers located in Arizona and its annual economic impact on the state is estimated at $2.6 billion. Many of the jobs it is adding around Tucson offer six-figure salaries.

Florida. The nation’s third most populous state, with as many electoral college votes as New York, has been described by the Almanac of American Politics as “a political battleground for the foreseeable future.” Trump won the state in 2016 by only 112,000 votes out of over nine million cast, meaning a repetition of that success is by no means assured. The state is ranked second in the nation for defense manufacturing, having attracted $233 billion in military contracts over the last 20 years.

Unlike Arizona, where one weapons maker bulks large in the state’s economy, Florida hosts virtually all of the Pentagon’s big system integrators and over 15,000 other defense contractors. Key players include Northrop Grumman
NOC
at Melbourne, Lockheed Martin
LMT
at Orlando, and Raytheon’s Pratt & Whitney unit at West Palm Beach. L3 Harris is headquartered in the state and some companies like DRS Technologies/Leonardo and General Dynamics have multiple major sites. Defense companies employ nearly 200,000 workers in the state, and that doesn’t include additional workers associated with NASA’s presence at Cape Canaveral.

Pennsylvania. Donald Trump was the first GOP presidential candidate to carry Pennsylvania since 1988, but he won by a mere 44,000 votes in a state of nearly 13 million. The Keystone State has been closely contested in every presidential election since the nation’s bicentennial year, with winners seldom getting more than 52% of the vote. There are over 11,000 defense contractors in the state, suggesting that weapons spending might make the difference between victory and defeat for Trump in 2020.

Pennsylvania has attracted $182 billion in military contracts over the last 20 years, an average of $9 billion per year. The state ranks number four nationally in the delivery of military supplies and equipment, number seven in the amount of defense contract dollars received. The two biggest military production sites are the BAE Systems armored vehicle manufacturing complex at York and the Boeing
BA
rotorcraft plant at Ridley Township. Both are essential to the production of front-line combat systems, and both source production inputs to numerous other suppliers in the state.

Wisconsin. Wisconsin was considered a “blue wall” state that could be counted on to support Democrats before Donald Trump won it by a slim margin in 2016. The current edition of the Almanac of American Politics describes Wisconsin as “perhaps the most pivotal battleground contest for Trump’s reelection bid in 2020.” Before supporting Trump in 2016, the state had not favored a Republican presidential candidate since 1984.

But unlike the other three battleground states, Wisconsin’s share of defense contracting dollars is well below the national average on a per capita basis. Over the last 20 years it has only received an average of $3 billion in military contracts per year. Nonetheless, it has at least two sites producing military systems noteworthy for their local economic impact. One is the aforementioned Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard that will build the Navy’s next class of frigates, and the other is the Oshkosh Defense business that manufactures substantially all Army and Marine Corps trucks.

The latter business is building up to 55,000 joint light tactical vehicles for the U.S. military, multi-purpose light trucks of which nearly 8,000 have been delivered. It may build a significant additional number for allies, making it, like the shipyard, a major jobs generator in the state. With so many other jobs in jeopardy during the present pandemic, the stability of employment at places like Marinette and Oshkosh could be a significant factor influencing electoral behavior in the approaching election.

Many of the companies mentioned above contribute to my think tank. Several are consulting clients.