Here’s your answer, via David Shepardson’s article for Reuters:
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters said on Wednesday that the union will not endorse any U.S. presidential candidate despite polling that showed a majority of members backed Republican candidate Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris.
The 1.3 million-member union – which represents truck drivers and a wide range of other workers ranging from airline pilots to zookeepers – had released a national electronic poll of its members Wednesday that showed rank-and-file members preferred the former president over Vice President Harris by 59.6% to 34%.
The Teamsters’ executive board endorsement had been widely anticipated because it was seen as a factor in a handful of battleground states that will decide the Nov. 5 election, including Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, where union membership is strong.
“We couldn’t get solid commitments on our core issues,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien told Fox News said in explaining the union’s decision. “No endorsement I think sends a message to both parties that if they truly want to support working people, they have to re-evaluate it and understand that nothing is given, it is earned.”
Let me get this straight.
The Teamster’s Union runs its own poll to find out who its members favor. In its own poll, members favor Donald Trump by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. So they…
…decline to endorse him.
Would it be fair to say that the Democrat Party is very appreciative? You’d think so, wouldn’t you?
But I wonder how this sits with the membership; how they feel about their “leaders”, who refuse to endorse the candidate a major majority of members tell them they support. Not very well, I suspect.
And I wonder how this will sit with voters in battleground states the article cites. Again: not very well, I suspect.
But sometimes negatives turn into positives. And, in that context, I can’t help wondering if non-support of Donald Trump from a union whose members make clear that they want him in office is going to boomerang, and benefit Trump. Big time.
That said, let me end by hypothesizing – no basis in fact, just my gut – that maybe, just maybe, this is the leadership’s attempt to have it both ways: i.e. ingratiating themselves to the Democrat Party they are usually in league with by not endorsing Donald Trump, but placating the membership by creating the potential boomerang effect in his favor.
Is that the way of things? Beats the %(#^ out of me. But, in this election, anything is possible.
