Union members aren't just voting on labor this year

Francine Eason and Andrew Gangwer are both union members, and affordability is top of mind for each of them. But she’s voting for Vice President Kamala Harris and he’s backing former President Donald Trump.

Eason works as a housekeeper at a hotel in Philadelphia, where she has belonged to UNITE HERE Local 274 for five years. Gangwer is a Teamster of 10 years in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, who works as an operations specialist at Anheuser-Busch.

“When they talk about strengthening the economy through corporations, that’s who pays me every week,” Gangwer, a 50-year-old registered independent, said of Republicans’ pro-business messaging. “It gives me the opportunity to fight for a better contract next time, because we can say, ‘Hey, look at these record profits you’re making.’”

The idea that the working class is naturally united is mistaken.

Prof. Tobias Higbie, UCLA

While union membership has continued to edge down in recent years, first the Biden-Harris administration and then the Harris campaign have pushed to shore up the clout of organized labor and Democratic support within its ranks. But views like Gangwer’s show there may be limits to that effort.

Harris has taken aim at “excessive” corporate profits and promoted a more blue-collar ticket, looking to fend off a rival who who peeled away more union voters from what remains a Democratic-leaning chunk of the electorate. Trump lost labor households by just 8 percentage points in 2016 after President Barack Obama won them by 18 four years earlier — still higher than Biden’s improved 16-point margin with union voters in 2020.

“Trump exploited that open door,” said Tobias Higbie, a professor of history and labor studies at the University of California, Los Angeles,