Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien, Ted Merriman/Wikipedia
CV NEWS FEED // The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (“Teamsters”) labor union this week announced that it will support neither major party candidate in November’s presidential election – marking the first time the union has not backed the Democratic nominee since 1996.
A FOX News columnist called the decision a “stunning move, and direct snub to Harris.” The sitting vice president had heavily courted the 121-year-old union’s support, but will be the first Democratic nominee this century to go without its backing.
The Teamsters had endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket four years ago. It is among the five largest labor unions in the country, with around 1.4 million members across a variety of industries.
“[T]he union was left with few commitments on top Teamsters issues from either former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris—and found no definitive support among members for either party’s nominee,” stated the Teamsters executive board on Wednesday.
The union’s General President Sean O’Brien told The Hill that both Trump and Harris “didn’t commit on the core issues that we need to get accomplished on behalf of our members.”
The Hill noted:
Issues of importance to the Teamsters include the passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would bolster the ability of workers to form a union and negotiate with their employers, and opposing the national right to work.
However, just before news of the Teamsters’ non-endorsement broke, the union’s X account posted a series of polls of its members – the most recent of which showed them favoring Trump over Harris by a whopping 27-point margin.
The Teamsters research phone poll, conducted last week, showed that 58% of union members surveyed backed Trump while only 31% backed Harris.
The Teamsters electronic member poll also showed Trump with a dominant lead over Harris – with 59.6% to her 34%. Other candidates polled at a combined 6.4%.
The electronic poll was conducted in the almost two-month period between July 24 and September 15. During most of this time, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was still in the race. On August 23, Kennedy suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump.
Of the polling results the Teamsters posted, the sole outlier was the union’s presidential town hall straw polls, taken between April and early July, when President Joe Biden was still the presumptive Democratic nominee. Interestingly, a plurality of union members favored Biden (44.3%) in the poll, compared to 36.3% who supported Trump and 5.6% who backed Kennedy.
Former Trump administration official Jenny Korn wrote on X that there was a “big swing” in the Teamsters’ support after Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic Party’s candidate.
When the polling was released Wednesday afternoon, O’Brien said: “Our members are the union, and their voices and opinions must be at the forefront of everything the Teamsters do.”
“Our final decision around a possible Presidential endorsement will not be made lightly, but you can be sure it will be driven directly by our diverse membership,” the Teamsters General President added.
In July, O’Brien became the first Teamsters president in the more than 100-years-long history of the union to speak at the Republican National Convention (RNC).
“I also want to thank President Donald Trump for opening the RNC’s doors to the Teamsters union and inviting me to speak before you tonight,” he said at the Milwaukee convention. “Working people have no chance of winning this fight. That’s why I’m here today. Because I refuse to keep doing the same thing my predecessors did.”
“Today, the Teamsters are here to say, we are not beholden to anyone or any party,” he added.
O’Brien had also requested to speak at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) the following month, but did not receive a response.
NPR reported that the union’s Wednesday announcement “comes as a blow to Vice President Kamala Harris, who met with Teamsters leadership for a roundtable discussion on Monday.”
Spokeswomen for the respective major party candidates’ campaigns weighed in on the Teamsters eschewing an endorsement.
Harris campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt claimed that the Democratic nominee’s “strong union record is why Teamsters locals across the country have already endorsed her — alongside the overwhelming majority of organized labor.”
Meanwhile, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “hardworking members of the Teamsters have been loud and clear— they want President Trump back in the White House.”
Workers represented by the Teamsters include, but are not limited to, sanitation workers, road crews, elevator mechanics, bridge operators, law enforcement officers, court clerks and reporters, bus drivers, school custodians and cafeteria workers, correctional officers, and toll collectors.
Union workers have historically been a heavily Democratic voting bloc. However, multiple polls show that they have trended to the right significantly over the past several decades.
Political commentator Steve Cortes said during a NewsNation interview Wednesday that “whatever union leadership decide, members overwhelmingly support Donald Trump, and that’s been clear across polling, particularly in battleground states.”
“And the main reason,” Cortes continued, “is that real wages have crashed under the economic mismanagement of Kamala Harris.”
Cortes served as a senior advisor to Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
Per CNN, the crucial swing states of Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, in particular, have a high percentage of workers in labor unions.
FOX News columnist David Marcus wrote Wednesday that a retired Teamster and Pennsylvania resident told him “I voted for Biden.”
“But you want facts?” the voter continued. “Let’s give grocery facts, let’s give electricity facts, let’s give gas facts, let’s give every fact between when he was elected and now.”
Marcus noted: “For him, the facts added up to a vote for Donald Trump. And he is not alone.”
In February, United Auto Workers (UAW) longtime member Brian Pannebecker, a Michigan resident, appeared on FOX News to discuss why he is supporting Trump in the election.
Pannebecker told FOX’s Bill Hemmer at the time that Biden-Harris “policies have basically hurt auto workers.”
“[Biden] showed up for 15 minutes to walk in a picket line and get his picture taken,” the union autoworker said at the time. “Donald Trump walks the walk, he doesn’t walk the picket line for a photo-op.”
CatholicVote reported in February that Pannebacker said that the Biden-Harris administration’s
push to regulate gas vehicles – popularly dubbed an “electric vehicle (EV) mandate” – has negatively impacted his industry.
“We’ve had two engine plants close in Macomb County in the last few years while they were ramping up to build more [EVs],” he said. “What does an electric vehicle not need? An engine. We had entire plants with thousands of workers devoted to building gasoline engines and [Biden’s] getting rid of those.”
Pannebecker emphasized that he and some of his fellow unionized workers are “out there in droves today voting” for Trump.
