How McDonald's became a talking point in the White House race

McDonald’s (MCD) has become a hot button topic for both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in their campaigns this election cycle.

On the latest episode of Capitol Gains, Yahoo Finance's Rachelle Akuffo, Washington Correspondent Ben Werschkul, and Senior Columnist Rick Newman discuss whether or not a presidential candidate can make an impact over well-known brands and businesses like the fast food giant.

“There’s a little less impact on McDonald’s itself… but it sort of shows how these campaigns are trying to use these companies to their advantage and use it to connect with voters.”

To find out more, listen to the full episode of Capitol Gains here.

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This post was written by Lauren Pokedoff.

Video transcript

But something I want to look at a voter block that a lot of people perhaps haven't really thought about the mcdonald's voter at least when it comes to relatability, which can be a little bit cringe for some of the candidates as we've seen so far.

And then I know you wrote about that as well.

Tell us how mcdonald's got into the mix here.

Yeah.

Well, the, the reasons are pretty widespread concerning mcdonald's a couple of stats that are kind of blow me away.

One is that according, this is according to mcdonald's nine in 10 Americans visit a mcdonald's at least once a year.

So nine in 10 Americans and then one in eight Americans has actually worked at a mcdonald's at some point in their life.

So it's perhaps one of the most common well known brands in the country and we've seen a lot of chatter on it on the campaign trail.

The last couple of weeks, the, the impetus of this is Kamala Harris.

She's talked in the last couple of years about a summer stint.

She had worked in mcdonald's.

She's one of the one in eight, there's a few others, Paul Ryan, former speaker of the House, apparently also worked in mcdonald's.

Um, she's talked about a summer stint there and, and sort of what it taught her a little bit.

She was raising money but she was working with people that were raising families on it and it's sort of part of her message, part of her way to be relatable and, and then Trump who, you know, has eaten a lot of mcdonald's and he's never worked there, but he's, he's been, he's been very associated as a mcdonald's customer.

He's been pushing back.

And so it's just sort of shows, it's kind of a fun thing.

There's a, there's a little less impact on mcdonald's itself.

The actual action for mcdonald's politically is at the state level, but it sort of shows kind of how these campaigns are trying to use these companies to their advantage and sort of use it to connect with voters.

And mcdonald's is a perfect example for it.