Navigating the 2024 elections as a contractor

By Emma Peterson. 

Learn how November 5 might shape the future of the contracting industry. 

As we move through the 2024 election season, many professionals are wondering if the current state of the presidential and congressional races will impact the industry. To take a deeper dive into this topic, Reid Ribble, former roofing contractor, congressman and past National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) CEO, joined Heidi J. Ellsworth for an episode of Contractor Outlook to talk about what members of the contracting industry should be thinking about heading into November. Heidi opened the conversation by clarifying a bit about the timeline of this episode release, saying, “We are recording this on September 20, 2024, with the plan of it coming out right before the elections in November. I want everyone to be aware that things may happen between today and when this podcast actually comes out, but we're going to be talking about where we're standing today.” 

With that acknowledgment made, Reid jumped straight into what’s unique about this election cycle. “It was unprecedented in that President Joe Biden decided to not seek reelection after he had won the primary system, which would've put him as the nominee.” As we all know, this led to Kamala Harris winning the Democratic Party’s nomination, which in turn threw off the Republican Party’s strategy,” Reid explained. “They were planning on running against one old man, against another maybe slightly older man. And all of a sudden they have this much younger, more vibrant candidate that they have to run against, and they're stumbling a bit, trying to figure out how to run against her.” 

On the congressional side, Reid shared his predictions, saying, “Right now the U.S. Senate is controlled by Democrats. The U.S. House is controlled by Republicans, and it's just a very, very small majority on each side. And so, I can pretty well tell you what's going to happen in the U.S. Senate. Republicans are going to take the Senate.” He believes that the outcome of the presidential election will also be an indicator of which party will take control of the House of Representatives. But, no matter who ends up with the majority in the House, he doesn’t think that it will be more than a four or five seat majority, meaning bipartisanship is necessary for anything to happen in the next year. 

As for how all of this will impact the contracting industry, one of the big things Reid highlighted was the economic influence that presidents can have. He explained, “Current Vice President Kamala Harris is talking about giving first-time home buyers a $25,000 cash credit so they can buy a home. And she's thinking that that will solve the housing problem. Former President Trump has policies about no taxes on tips or no taxes on overtime. Neither of these make sense.” Reid argues that Kamala Harris is missing a key perspective, whereby raising access to housing, it raises demand and only improves economics for housing builders. But he says that Donald Trump’s policy ideas are also flawed. He explained, “If they went to no taxes on overtime, it would incentivize every company in America to cancel all salaried employees because the salaried employees, they're working 60 hours a week now, they'd want those 20 hours to show up on their payroll so they can get a third of their income with tax-free.” Overall, Reid sees both of these economic plans as problematic because they would increase the national debt, which drains the private sectors (such as roofing) of resources they need to grow and flourish. 

Read the transcript, Listen to the podcast or Watch the recording to hear more of Reid’s thoughts on how the 2024 election will affect those in the contracting industry.