In the final days of the 2024 presidential election campaign, both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have made a point of approximating themselves with McDonald’s workers. And it’s clear why.
According to a 2023 survey conducted by McDonald’s, one in eight Americans has worked in its restaurants. If this is accurate, U.S. Census statistics suggest nearly 42 million Americans have that shared work experience.
Harris, the Democratic nominee, has spoken during her campaign of working at a McDonald’s restaurant at college to highlight that she can relate directly to the life experiences of working and middle class Americans, unlike the billionaire Trump.
But her claim to have worked at McDonald’s is unsubstantiated by her campaign—so far, at least—and Harris’ political opponents have sought to capitalize on the apparent absence of corroborating evidence. The Trump campaign has explicitly said, again without evidence, that it’s a lie.
In this context, Trump stopped at a McDonald’s restaurant in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, a key swing state in the 2024 election, on October 20 for a campaign publicity event to needle Harris and show he connects with workers.
The Republican nominee posed for photos and videos while he donned an apron, manned the fryers, and served customers at the drive-thru window, joking that he has “now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala at McDonald’s.”
According to The Washington Post, the restaurant was closed off for the event and customers were vetted by the Secret Service, which has come under intense scrutiny over its protection of Trump, who has faced attempted assassinations.
With McDonald’s a perhaps unexpected focal point of the 2024 presidential campaign, Newsweek asked Americans who had worked there about their experiences—and who they think is winning the issue between Trump and Harris.
Win McNamee/Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
Dan Gershenson—Kamala Harris
I worked at McDonald’s as my very first job in the summer of 1988 in Wheaton, Illinois. I was just shy of my 16th birthday and earned a whopping $3.65 an hour. I half-jokingly say McDonald’s was the hardest job of my life. You’re constantly moving and coordinating your cooking (I was usually at the McNuggets station) based on the crowd. You’re over heat, sweating and on your feet but for a short 15-minute lunch break.
But that job kept me humble. I was one of a team and everyone was dependent on one another or we would be delayed and the customer would be upset. My Dad wanted me to have any summer job, but I think he liked I worked at McDonald’s to learn the value of hard work and with a team. I will always remind myself that even my hardest day at work today as a business owner sitting at a desk doing what I enjoy is nothing compared to the eight-hour sprint at McDonald’s!
I believe Kamala Harris is winning on McDonald’s not merely because she worked at McDonald’s but because she has actually worked in a “real” job for little money in that role which is closer to what so many Americans identify with.
We all are trying to make it in this world with increasing prices, child care, housing, and college loans. Trump can’t identify with ANY of that struggle. He seems only to use tariffs as an answer instead of solutions that are far more direct. Kamala Harris’ solutions put more in the middle class’ pockets to save.
Barry Smith—Donald Trump
As a 17-year-old, working at McDonald’s in 1978 was a lot of fun. All of the employees got along very well and we were like one big family. Many of my coworkers were high school classmates. As a McDonald’s employee, you didn’t just have a single role at the restaurant, which made the restaurant operate more efficiently. I mostly manned the grill, but I also operated the fryer, mopped the floors, dumped out the grease traps, etc.
Donald Trump—let me be clear, as Kamala Harris would say—won the “McDonald’s challenge” having pulled off a major public relations victory by committing some of his time at McDonald’s.
Harris has failed to prove that she ever worked at McDonald’s. One never forgets when and where he/she worked there. Harris saying she worked the fryer makes me very skeptical. As I mentioned, we workers were trained to do several jobs, not just one.
Furthermore, Harris has never mentioned the name of a single McDonald’s coworker and because of her celebrity status, one of her former coworkers surely would have come forward to say he/she worked with her. I can probably name ten people who worked with me at McDonald’s and that was 46 years ago! Harris’s credibility lay in ruins.
Ben Cotton—Neither
I worked at a McDonald’s in Georgetown, Indiana from the summer of 1999 until 2004. In the summer of 2002, I worked at a McDonald’s in New Albany, Indiana because the Georgetown store was closed after a fire.
Working at McDonald’s was hard, but I found it rewarding. I didn’t like coming home smelling like fry oil and covered in grease, but I made a lot of friends, one of whom is still one of my closest friends.
The shifts were long and often tedious, but we found ways to get through. One of my coworkers and I often badly sang oldies (or Christmas carols in December) while making food. I took my job seriously and was promoted to floor supervisor after a few years. I learned a lot about leadership as an 18-year-old trying to direct 16 and 17-year-olds.
Twenty years into my professional career, I’m just as likely to answer an interview question with a McDonald’s anecdote as I am a story from any other position. I got to the point where I was pretty good at the job and could usually keep a shift running smoothly, and sometimes look back on it wistfully.
I hate that this is even a question. It’s hard to say who is winning on this point, because almost everyone has their mind made up already. The fact that Harris hasn’t been able to back up her story is a little surprising, because I remember a lot of the people I worked with, but absence of proof isn’t proof of absence.
I saw the picture of Trump cosplaying at a closed McDonald’s recently and it’s laughable, but I know people who take it seriously. At this point, the McDonald’s angle in the election just reinforces what you already believe.
Gracie Ritter—Kamala Harris
I worked at McDonald’s from 1998 through to 2000, my first year of college. I’m from Herrin, Illinois. I began working at my hometown McDonald’s in my senior year of high school. I loved being busy all the time at our McDonald’s.
It made the hours fly by, and I made great connections there that have lasted into adulthood and proper career networking—probably because we all stayed busy enough to know what hard workers our mates were, too.
It’s honest work, and a piece of Americana in which I could always take pride, and now my son works at the same McDonald’s that I did and enjoys it just as much, even feel that little hint of personal legacy, too.
So I loved hearing about Kamala Harris starting out working at her local McDonald’s. You never know what’s going to make you feel connected to another person, particularly a national politician you’ve never met.
Imagining the Vice President collecting those promotional pins for various marketing campaigns (McDonald’s Monopoly, Furbies, Beanie Babies, etc.) on her purple visor made her instantly more relatable to me.
I felt as drawn to her by that small detail as I did repelled by the tableau of Donald Trump’s recent antics. Every bit of his McDonald’s performance felt like he was trying to prove his peerlessness over random fast-food window workers.
I felt sickened by every photo and article of him that day—and not just because he wasn’t wearing a head covering while leaning over that prep station. I felt like he was trying to make this type of work look so remedial and small that it couldn’t possibly be worth much of an argument in the fight over raising the minimum wage.
It pains me that so many of the blue-collar Americans he mocks throughout the country still give him their emphatic support, even after insincere photo ops and publicity stunts relegate them to the background with their voices drowned out.
I earnestly hope the fast food workers of our country will prove more stolid than other industries we’ve watched him pastiche. I’d really love to see those Golden Arches help topple the Golden Elevator.
