President Joe Biden believes he’s got the U.S. on the verge of a boom time for American manufacturing.

He just needs to convince voters to keep him in office long enough to see it through.

In swing states and factory towns, Biden is making a resurgence in domestic manufacturing central to his reelection pitch. He’s highlighting a surge of investments across the nation as evidence that an economic agenda centered on reviving the country’s industrial core is just starting to pay off.

But 10 months out from the election, those new factory projects remain in their early stages — and have yet to generate an anticipated wave of manufacturing jobs. And after a pandemic-era rebound, industry hiring overall has turned stagnant: Manufacturers added just 12,000 jobs in 2023 amid an extended business slowdown.

The lull has threatened to complicate the White House’s depiction of an economy that's entered a manufacturing renaissance, feeding fears that Biden is losing ground among voters in key battleground states — even as he advances policies aimed squarely at boosting their communities in the long run.

“The messaging is challenging — people actually need to see the results for themselves,” said Rep. Dan Kildee of Michigan, where recent polls show Biden trailing GOP frontrunner Donald Trump. “We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

Biden is spending the first weeks of 2024 trying to make headway on that front, foreshadowing a campaign that will increasingly make the argument that his industrial strategy is poised to succeed where Trump and others before him failed.

Enticed by a range of new subsidies and tax breaks, manufacturers have poured roughly $220 billion into manufacturing construction on Biden's watch. New factories will eventually make the car parts, computer chips and construction materials that the U.S. has long relied on foreign countries to provide.

And in trips over the last month to Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, Biden has vowed that the new investment will ultimately create a rush of jobs.

“What we’re doing here in North Carolina........

© Politico