The announcement by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters that it would not endorse either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Trump in the 2024 White House race earned some major headlines.
And the move by the powerful union with over one million U.S. members instantly gave the Trump campaign some ammunition to fire at Team Harris, because the Teamsters became the only one of the nation’s top ten organized labor organizations not to endorse the vice president in the race to succeed President Biden in the White House.
“The Teamsters carry a lot of weight,” Trump noted as he discussed the move by the union against an endorsement for the first time in over a quarter century.
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President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Sean O’Brien speaks on stage on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
The Harris campaign, in an apparent move to downplay the news, pointed to endorsements from “many Teamsters locals and rank and file.”
This week, ahead of Trump’s stop in Savannah, Georgia, to outline his manufacturing proposals, the Harris campaign spotlighted the endorsement of the vice president by Teamsters Joint Council 75, which represents rank-and-file members in Georgia, Florida and Alabama.
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The Harris campaign touted that the vice president “has now been endorsed by local Teamsters unions representing more than 1.5 million active and retired members. This includes more than half a million members across battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nevada.”
But new numbers released this week by the Teamsters of their survey of rank-and-file members that was conducted July 24-Sept. 15 — broken down by state — shows Trump with far more support than Harris.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks about the tax code and manufacturing at the Johnny Mercer Theatre Civic Center, on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, in Savannah, Ga. (AP/Evan Vucci)
Here’s the breakdown of the Teamsters rank-and-file vote in the seven crucial battleground states whose razor-thin margins decided President Biden’s 2020 election victor over Trump and will likely determine the outcome of the 2024 White House race.
Arizona: Trump 57.3% Harris 38.7%
Georgia: Trump 56.3% Harris 40.7%
Michigan: Trump 61.7% Harris 32.5%
Nevada: Trump 59.9% Harris 37.3%
North Carolina: Trump 69.1% Harris 29.2%
Pennsylvania: Trump 65.3% Harris 31.4%
Wisconsin: Trump 57% Harris 40.5%
According to the national Teamsters vote totals released last week at the time of the endorsement announcement, Trump’s support among the rank-and-file surged since Harris replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic Party’s 2024 ticket over two months ago.
President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris at IBEW Local Union #5 on September 2, 2024, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
The union’s polling, prior to Biden dropping out, showed that the president was ahead of Trump among members, 44.3% to 36.3%, but that Trump held a 25-point margin of support over Harris. New figures showed that it was a similar story in the state voting as well, with Trump surging in rank-and-file support after Biden ended his re-election bid.
Biden has long been seen as arguably the most pro-union president in modern times, and he made history as the first president to walk the picket lines with striking workers.
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Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien, in explaining why the Teamsters decided not to endorse, said that “neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business.
“We sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries — and to honor our members’ right to strike — but were unable to secure those pledges.”
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris addresses the Economic Club of Pittsburgh on the Carnegie Mellon University campus in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
The Harris campaign touted the vice president’s “strong union record” and argued that “while Donald Trump says that striking workers should be fired, Vice President Harris has literally walked the picket line and stood strong with organized labor for her entire career.”
Asked in an MSNBC interview on Wednesday whether the Teamsters were looking for more commitments before making any endorsement, Harris demurred and pivoted to an attack on Trump, charging that the former president during his administration “made a whole lot of promises that he did not meet and, one would argue, broke.”