White, male union members being tempted to vote for social identity over their economic interest “is an old problem and an old argument” in political labor history, said Professor Jefferson Cowie, a social and political historian at Vanderbilt University whose research focuses on inequality and labor shape American politics.

“Going back to Nixon, who had a white, male, blue-collar strategy to win the hearts of white male industrial workers out from underneath the AFL-CIO leadership, there’s always been a strong constituency that’s going to vote whiteness and maleness.”

These “Bruce Springsteen voters,” as Eric Alterman dubbed them, form a strong constituency in labor circles that “votes things other than its economic interest,” Cowie said. “Biden’s project is going to be trying to reach out beyond his white male blue-collar base… the whole thing’s built on coalitions.”