How Election Politics Could Shape The Biden Administration’s Weapons Spending – Forbes

I frequently am called upon to address defense-industry audiences—offsites, board meetings, etc.—about the outlook for weapons spending.

I always begin by reminding the assembled executives that their customer isn’t a military service or defense agency, it’s a political system.

That is a market reality worth bearing in mind as the Biden administration puts together its military spending plans for the next three years.

There is a widespread belief that the administration’s 2022 defense request was just a placeholder until it gets sorted out, and that big changes are coming in 2023 when key appointees are in place and defense reviews have been completed.

However, there are compelling electoral reasons why Biden’s defense posture, especially his approach to weapons purchases, may continue to resemble the Trump priorities he inherited.

All you have to do is look at the razor-thin majorities Democrats command in Congress to see why changes in major programs could portend doom for their control of the government.

In the House, the loss of four votes would prevent Democrats from securing a majority for their agenda; in the Senate, the loss of even one vote could prove fatal.

So, if the pattern of midterm elections under recent Democratic presidents repeats next year, with sizable losses in both chambers, Biden could find his party severely weakened as it prepares for the next presidential contest in 2024.

The reason weapons spending may prove pivotal in next year’s midterms and beyond is that military outlays are by far the largest pot of discretionary spending that any administration controls, and weapons accounts are more subject to sudden shifts than, say, readiness.

For instance, Caspar Weinberger funded huge increases in weapons outlays during his time as Ronald Reagan’s defense secretary in the 1980s.

Only a decade later, after the Cold War ended, defense secretary Dick Cheney canceled a hundred major weapons programs during his four-year run in the same job.

Thus, it seems that among the various discretionary accounts that an administration can leverage to secure political support, weapons outlays deliver the greatest potential for influencing votes.

The Biden administration knows this, and probably will review any changes proposed by the Pentagon in its weapons accounts in light of the likely political fallout.

For example, the Navy has been talking about ending production of its Arleigh Burke-class destroyers in order to pursue a bigger warship.

Any such move would inevitably result in thousands of layoffs at Bath Iron Works, the biggest industrial employer in Maine.

If you doubt that the potential electoral consequences of mass layoffs at Bath will figure in administration defense plans, then you don’t understand how Washington works.

Against that backdrop, here are four states with sizable defense-industry workforces that are up for grabs in the next presidential election—states that went for Biden in 2020 but could easily go the other way in 2024.

The Biden White House will have to consider what any bold plans for shifting Pentagon investment priorities might mean for the vote in these states.

Arizona. Biden won Arizona’s 11 Electoral College votes with 49.4% of the ballots cast, compared to 49.0% for Donald Trump. It doesn’t get much closer than that.

The state’s 5,000+ defense contractors benefit handsomely from weapons spending, having received nearly $13 billion in Pentagon contracts during 2020. Raytheon’s missile business is one of the biggest employers in the state, and fellow aerospace contractor Honeywell also employs thousands.

It wouldn’t take much to shift Biden’s 11,000-vote margin in Arizona to a Republican candidate in 2024—Obama lost the state in both elections—nor to flip marginal congressional districts in 2022. Thus, the impact of weapons initiatives on local jobs will have to be assessed if the White House wants to avoid an electoral backlash.

Florida. The Sunshine State is arguably the biggest prize in presidential politics, since the two states with larger populations—California and Texas—are considered to be safely in the pocket of one or the other party. Trump won Florida last year with 51.2% of the vote to Biden’s 47.9%, but the previous two presidential races were won in the state by barely 1%.

So it probably has electoral implications that this particular battleground state has 16,000 defense contractors and last year received over $16 billion in Pentagon contracts. In fact, since 2000 Florida has received a quarter-trillion dollars in military contracts, much of it related to weapons work.

Unlike in Arizona, the Florida defense complex is spread out statewide among many prime contractors, from BAE Systems in the Panhandle to Northrop Grumman

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in Melbourne to Raytheon in St. Petersburg to Sikorsky in West Palm Beach. Any generalized reduction in Pentagon weapons outlays would inevitably destroy jobs across the state.

Pennsylvania. The Keystone State didn’t favor a Republican presidential candidate after Ronald Reagan left office until Donald Trump appeared on the ballot in 2016. Trump beat Clinton by 44,000 votes that year and lost by barely 1% four years later (48.8% to Biden’s 50.0%).

Close presidential races tend to be the rule in the nation’s fifth-most-populous state, which implies that relatively minor developments can have outsized consequences for Pennsylvania’s 18 Electoral College votes. How the Pentagon treats the state’s 11,000 military contractors might prove significant in a close race.

Like Florida, Pennsylvania’s defense complex is spread out, with only a handful of really big operations like the BAE Systems armored-vehicle plant in York and the Boeing

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rotorcraft plant near Philadelphia. But many of the small and medium-size suppliers are subcontractors on big-ticket weapons programs like the F-35 fighter, so a few program changes could have employment implications across the state.

Wisconsin. The Almanac of American Politics predicted in 2018 that Wisconsin might prove “the most pivotal battleground contest for Trump’s reelection bid,” acknowledging that a repetition of Trump’s 2016 win in the Badger State was by no means assured. As it turned out, Biden won with 49.4% of the vote in the state to 48.8% for Trump—a difference of 21,000 votes out of over three million cast.

Time will tell whether Wisconsin has returned to its long tradition of favoring Democratic presidential candidates. But Democrats will have to assume the worst in 2024, and thus strain to secure every available vote. That makes the state’s 4,000 defense contractors potentially important, even though on a per capita basis Wisconsin only brings in a fraction of the defense dollars that, for instance, Arizona does.

The biggest in-state prime contractors are Marinette Marine, which last year was awarded the Navy’s next frigate, and Oshkosh Defense, builder of almost all the Army’s trucks. Trump sought to capitalize on the frigate award in the 2020 election, and given its importance to the local economy Biden is unlikely to change course. Oshkosh has performed well on the Army’s newest light truck, which makes it easy for the White House to keep that effort on track.

Bottom line: weapons spending is only one component of federal spending, but in the battleground states where political control is ultimately determined, it has the potential to be decisive.

Several of the companies mentioned here contribute to my think tank.

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