Policy and Legal

Now that most of the election results are in, we can ask the next important question: were the congressional elections good for manufacturers?

The NAM’s political action committee, known as NAM-PAC, has an unequivocal answer: absolutely. In fact, nearly all of NAM-PAC’s bipartisan picks for Congress are returning to Washington.

The results: 48 of the 49 NAM-PAC-supported members of the U.S. House of Representatives have been reelected so far, with successful candidates on both sides of the aisle. Meanwhile, 13 of the 15 NAM-PAC-endorsed Senate candidates won or are currently leading their challengers.

With some races still being tallied, the number of NAM-PAC success stories may grow—but the results already testify to the NAM’s influence and America’s desire to support manufacturers.

The criteria: How do we know a candidate is good for manufacturing? NAM-PAC looks at a variety of factors, including:

• The candidate’s history of supporting policies that are important to manufacturing;
• The manufacturing footprint in the candidate’s state or district;
• The candidate’s history of engaging and working with the NAM and member companies; and
• The committees the candidate serves on and his or her leadership roles.

The growing clout: NAM-PAC has seen extraordinary growth over the past few years. During the 2019–2020 election cycle, NAM-PAC contributed nearly $300,000 to the campaigns of manufacturing champions on Capitol Hill, which is almost a tenfold increase from the previous election cycle in 2017–2018.

The last word: “In looking at the results of House and Senate elections, it’s clear that candidates who focused on manufacturing priorities won the night on Tuesday,” said NAM Vice President of Government Relations Jordan Stoick. “That’s a good thing for getting good pro-manufacturing legislation accomplished whether it’s infrastructure investment, defending pro-growth tax policy or passing immigration reform.”