Harris faces challenge with union voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania

Vice President Harris’s lack of traction with unionized blue-collar workers has emerged as one of her biggest challenges to winning key states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, as polls show her significantly underperforming Joe Biden’s performance with union workers in 2020.

Harris’s tenuous relationship with elements of organized labor is reflected by the decisions of the Teamsters and the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) not to endorse her presidential campaign.

She narrowly avoided disaster when President Biden helped avert a prolonged a port workers strike by brokering a tentative labor deal with the International Longshoremen’s Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance on Thursday.

Especially concerning for Democrats is that Harris isn’t even polling as well as Hillary Clinton did in 2016 among union voters.

Notably, Clinton ended up losing two key states, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where unions represent more than 14 percent of the workforce.

The loss of those two traditionally Democratic-leaning states along with Wisconsin propelled Donald Trump to the White House.

Clinton led Trump among labor voters by 12 points eight years ago, while Harris now leads Trump by only 9 points, according to polling data aggregated by CNN.

On Election Day 2016, Clinton ended up winning 51 percent of union households — compared to Trump’s 42 percent, according to exit polls.

Exit polls four years later showed Biden did much better among union-affiliated voters. He carried 56 percent of union households — compared to Trump’s 40 percent.

Unlike Clinton, Biden won Michigan and Pennsylvania, albeit narrowly.  

Democratic strategists and progressive activists say there are several factors driving Harris’s relatively weak polling among unionized voters.

Perhaps the biggest factor is that many union members simply don’t know Harris as well as Biden.

Biden served 36 years in the Senate, representing a state near to the labor hubs of Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York. He also had the chance to introduce himself to union voters when he ran unsuccessfully for president in 1988 and 2008.

“It’s just a product of them needing to get to know her. I think the disadvantage she has is that Joe Biden is the most pro-union president ever,” said Jonathan Kott, a Democratic strategist and former Senate aide.

Kott said Biden is a tough act to follow for Harris.  

“He was the only president to be on a union picket line; he’s so over-the-top pro-union,” he said.

Biden became the first president to join a picket line when he walked with striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) at a General Motors plant near Detroit in 2023.

Democratic strategists say the preference for Biden among union voters may come down to his style and personality, something that would be hard for Harris’s campaign to address through policy statements or get-out-the-vote rallies.

“Biden has a sweet spot with labor that Kamala does not have,” said Ray Zaccaro, a Democratic strategist who has worked with the labor movement.

“Biden has had a special relationship with labor throughout his entire career,” he added. “I don’t think there’s anything particularly lacking in Harris’s position on labor, but there probably are some stylistic and relationship differences for her to overcome.”

“She doesn’t love to walk the walk and talk the talk like they like to see it done. She’s not a hail fellow well met, back-slapping [politician],” he observed.  

Harris dropped out of the 2020 presidential race before the Iowa caucuses and didn’t have to run the gauntlet of competitive primaries this year.

Instead, she has tried to ride on the Biden-Harris administration’s record, but that hasn’t been enough to win over the trust of many union voters.

Democratic and progressive strategists say Harris needs to emphasize the bread-and-butter economic issues that are top of mind to many union voters, such as bringing manufacturing back to the United States, combating the outsourcing of American jobs and fighting inflation.

They say former President Trump’s pledge to slap 60 percent tariffs on imports from China and 20 percent tariffs on imports from other countries — and his pledge to crack down on migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border — appeal to many rank-and-file union members.

And some of them acknowledge that more culturally conservative union members don’t feel as comfortable voting for Harris to become the nation’s first female president.

“Trump’s tariffs and get-rid-of-the-immigrants [message] is a very attractive kind of proposition to people who feel like their jobs were taken abroad, and Trump gets some credit from union guys for breaking with the free-trade consensus,” said Bob Borosage, a progressive activist and co-director of Campaign for America’s Future.

“She’s a woman, she’s African American and she’s from California. So there’s a set of credibility hurdles I think she had to overcome to prove that she was one of them,” Borosage said.

Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), is helping Harris, Borosage said. Walz is a former public school teacher and former member of the National Education Association.

But Borosage argued Harris needs to spend more time and energy promoting a progressive economic agenda — something Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has also urged — to win over working-class voters.

“I think she’s not done it enough,” he said. “If she really focused on it, argued it and stayed with it, that would work.

“But I think if you’re parading your Republican support and your elite support and you’re making points about bipartisanship and democracy, you’re not talking about trade and jobs,” he added, referring to Harris’s decision to showcase her support from anti-Trump Republicans such as former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).

Borosage said Harris’s relatively small lead among union voters in the polls is cause for concern in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

“It’s neck and neck. You got to be concerned,” he said, describing union voters as “very” critical in those key states.

Jim McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who works for Trump, said “private-sector union types like the operating engineers, the Teamsters, etc., they are overwhelming supporting Donald Trump.”

“That’s why Teamsters remained neutral,” he said.

McLaughlin pointed out that a recent poll of rank-and-file Teamsters members found 58 percent of them supported Trump, while only 31 percent supported Harris.

Trump claimed at a July 20 rally that he would get 95 percent of the UAW’s vote because of unionized autoworkers’ opposition to importing electric vehicles made in China.

“The bottom line is at the end of the day, a lot of these union workers that used to be die-hard Democrats, they support Donald Trump,” McLaughlin added. “When you go to the so-called ‘blue wall’ of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — those are the three where it’s really going to matter.”

Zaccaro, the Democratic strategist, predicted Harris would win a strong majority of union voters, but he acknowledged Trump has traction with some pockets of them.

“Where you see a split, it’s an indication that there is a movement within the labor world that is more aligned with MAGA, protectionism, nationalist identity,” he said.    

He said some union voters increasingly support “some of the messaging that the Trump campaign is putting out.”

One labor official who requested anonymity said many members of his union come from more culturally conservative households and aren’t very familiar with Harris’s record on labor issues.

“We have a lot of Republicans in our membership,” the official said, adding that union members reflect society’s spectrum of different political views.

That diversity within union membership, however, didn’t stop labor groups from embracing Biden in 2020, as well as Clinton in 2016 and former President Obama in 2012 and 2008.

The Teamsters endorsed the Democratic candidate in all four of those years.

The IAFF endorsed Obama in 2008 and 2012 and Biden in 2020 but did not endorse Clinton in 2016.

One key difference between then and now is Harris’s sudden rise to the Democratic Party’s nomination, which hasn’t given her much time to build relationships with unionized and union-affiliated voters.

“Biden had 35 years of history with us, but I don’t think our members know Harris that well yet, or know what she’s done, what her positions have been and that she’s been on the picket lines,” the labor official said.