Labor strategist Steve Rosenthal says Kamala Harris fared higher with union voters than headlines recommend — and descriptions the labor motion’s path ahead.
By Kalena Thomhave, for Capital & Essential
Earlier than the election, a number of headlines instructed that union voters had deserted the Democratic Occasion for Donald Trump. And although Trump did certainly win the presidential election on Nov. 5 with many rank-and-file union members’ help, he didn’t win union voters total. What’s extra, Steve Rosenthal, who has labored as an electoral strategist within the labor motion for greater than 40 years, thinks the political coin might flip once more as quickly as 2026.
A former political director of the AFL-CIO, the place he helped revitalize labor’s political affect, Rosenthal focuses on partaking union members and working-class voters. He’s at present president of the Organizing Group, a political consulting agency that works with labor unions to assist them get out the vote and win campaigns. The agency runs In Union, a voter mobilization program that reached 1.5 million largely white working-class voters this 12 months within the battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, in addition to Ohio. After Kamala Harris’ loss, Rosenthal believes the labor motion wants to start out making ready now for the anti-worker modifications which will come from a second Trump administration — and in addition for the following election.
This interview has been edited for brevity and readability.
Capital & Essential: I’d as properly ask the query that everybody is asking concerning the election: What occurred?
Steve Rosenthal: For me, probably the most telling numbers got here out of the AP VoteCast ballot. Voters who rated the financial system glorious or good — 36% of the citizens — voted for Harris 82 to 17. Those that stated the financial system was not so good or poor — 63% of the citizens — voted for Trump 69 to 29. Should you return to 2020, [the poll results were] virtually the precise reverse of that — 43% stated the financial system was glorious or good, [and they] voted for Trump 81 to 18. The 57% of the citizens who stated the financial system was not so good or poor voted for Biden 77 to 21.
As lots of people have identified, the financial system was the No. 1 situation by far for voters. In the event that they thought that issues had been going OK, they voted for the incumbent [party in] Kamala Harris, and in the event that they thought that issues weren’t going properly with the financial system, they voted for the change candidate, which was Trump. For lots of voters, financial points — forgive the expression — trump fascism, democracy and selection — the cornerstone of the Harris marketing campaign. I believe to some voters, [arguments on] these points had been much less credible as a result of they lived by means of 4 years of Trump. To me, that’s the prime line abstract. I don’t consider there was any large realignment [or evidence of] a long-term conservative shift.
Once I was the political director on the AFL-CIO from 1996 to 2002, a part of my rap was that the one white working-class voters who had been voting for Democrats had been in unions. It was true then, and it’s largely true at the moment. And the union vote has truly gotten a bit of worse. There has not been sufficient consideration through the years to the decline within the variety of union members and, subsequently, union voters, and what that has meant for Democrats. I’m comfortable to see folks speaking concerning the Democrats needing to change into the celebration of working folks once more.
“It’s not that the party doesn’t stand for workers anymore; it’s that the party leadership is not getting in the trenches with workers anymore.”
On the union vote, there was numerous media dialogue about how union members are migrating to Trump regardless of the Biden administration doing a lot for unions.
First off, union members voted for Harris in fairly robust numbers. Throughout the three blue wall states, [there was a] important efficiency by union members.
In Pennsylvania, union members made up 18% of the citizens. So, virtually one out of 5 votes forged got here from union households, and so they voted 52 to 47 for Harris, which is healthier than the Biden vote was in 2020, [when] Biden misplaced union households to Trump 49 to 50 in Pennsylvania. So, she truly did higher. In Wisconsin, Kamala Harris gained union voters 53 to 46 — higher than Clinton did in 2016 and never fairly pretty much as good as Biden did in 2020, however nonetheless a nine-point margin amongst union voters within the state. In Michigan, Harris gained [union voters] 55 to 44 — not fairly pretty much as good as Biden did in 2020, however a lot better than Clinton in 2016.
Trump has eroded the union vote a bit of bit, however not in substantial numbers. The media rush to judgment earlier than the election based mostly on some polls suggesting that union members had deserted the Democrats, it’s simply fallacious.
What are your ideas on unions just like the Teamsters not endorsing Harris?
The Teamsters, as was properly reported, stayed impartial. So did the firefighters. However there have been 50 unions that supported Kamala Harris.
Union staff attend a rally hosted by Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris on the Dort Monetary Heart on Oct. 04, 2024 in Flint, Michigan.
The Teamsters launched a ballot that stated that [nearly] 60% of their members had been supporting Trump, and [indicated] that’s why they determined to remain impartial. I’ve seen numerous union member polls over the greater than 40 years I’ve been doing this work. Unions may begin off with their members behind 10, 15, or 20 factors. However then you definitely put your program into gear and talk together with your members — on this case, for instance, level out that Trump helps right-to-work and that Trump ran one of the vehemently anti-union administrations within the historical past of the nation. After which distinction that with Harris’ report and the truth that Harris forged the deciding vote on the laws that saved the pensions for a whole lot of 1000’s of union members, together with Teamsters.
It was inexcusable that the union didn’t take the chance to speak to their members and clarify to them what was at stake on this election. As a result of if that they had completed that, they’d have moved these numbers. No union chief might take a look at these two candidates and with any diploma of honesty recommend that considered one of them wouldn’t be higher for working folks.
Do you will have ideas on the best way to reconcile how the financial system is doing versus how folks really feel the financial system is doing? It appears that evidently folks’s private experiences don’t essentially match up with what the headlines say concerning the financial system.
I believe that’s a part of why the Harris marketing campaign tread calmly on selling a few of the knowledge on how inflation was down, as a result of folks weren’t feeling that.
There’s a component there concerning the message and the messenger. It’s not that the celebration doesn’t stand for staff anymore; it’s that the celebration management just isn’t getting within the trenches with staff anymore. Their accomplishments are partially paid quick shrift as a result of there’s an enormous diploma of cynicism total about each events and politics usually. Operating a billion {dollars} in TV adverts aimed toward working folks to attempt to say to them “We’re with you” — on the heels of 30 years of NAFTA and different commerce offers and standing [with] companies, and never getting within the trenches with staff?
There’s a distinction between what the celebration is doing and preventing for and what folks really feel and see and perceive.
Biden was, by all accounts, probably the most pro-union president in our lifetimes. It should be extremely insulting to President Biden, Vice President Harris [and others in the administration], who’ve completed a lot over the previous few years for unions and staff, to be listening to that the celebration has deserted them.
“Every four years the labor movement has the potential to play an outsized role in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.”
You stated that Democrats have to be doing the work within the trenches with staff. What does that seem like?
I believe it’s strolling picket strains. I believe it’s exhibiting up at union halls. I believe it’s gathering teams of working folks collectively and sitting with them and listening to them — doing city corridor conferences round your district or state and listening to what folks need to say. It means standing united with working folks and letting them see who’s actually on their aspect.
A billboard sponsored by the Democratic Nationwide Committee studying “Listen to the UAW: Trump is a Scab” is displayed on Oct. 10, 2024, in Detroit, Michigan.
Over the following couple of years, it’s going to be standing robust in opposition to what’s going to be a vicious assault on a variety of employee’s rights. There are going to be assaults on [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration], time beyond regulation pay, the Nationwide Labor Relations Board, funding the Honest Labor Requirements Act, and federal staff’ unions.
What has been your method to mobilizing union and working-class voters?
With our voter engagement program, In Union, we offer voters with a 12 months of data — we don’t simply begin speaking to them across the election. We give them recommendations on their households saving cash, we offer them with details about unions on the entrance strains, we give them methods to carry politicians accountable and to battle again. After which we regularly get into speaking concerning the election itself. We by no means make endorsements, however we offer folks with good, sound data and well-documented citations.
How do you see that work evolving over the following few years?
As loopy because it sounds, it’s not too quickly to start out [work for] 2026 within the Blue Wall states, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In two of the states there will likely be open governors’ races, and [Gov. Josh] Shapiro will likely be up for reelection in Pennsylvania. After which — it sounds foolish for me to speak about 2028, however each 4 years the labor motion has the potential to play an outsized function in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
So what we have to do just isn’t wait till October 2026 or September 2028 and begin speaking with union members [about] defending staff’ rights. Individuals need to be engaged. Union members will willingly make cellphone calls. They’ll discuss to their elected officers. They’ll go to city corridor conferences. They’re extra small-d democratic than most voters as a result of they expertise [democracy] of their unions [when] they elect native union officers and vote on contracts.
We have to begin now. There’s an excessive amount of at stake for working folks with this incoming administration to not begin partaking folks in January.
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