Pennsylvania steelworkers defied union leadership to support former President Donald Trump as the country catapults toward Election Day.
Ahead of Trump’s remarks at a Monday evening rally in Pittsburgh, members of the United Steelworkers union, which is headquartered in the city, stood in lines waiting to catch a glimpse of the Republican presidential nominee. During Trump’s speech, USW workers wearing hard hats flanked him in the background, joining the thousands of supporters roaring as he said “We’ve been waiting four years for this.”
“He saved us once with tariffs,” one steelworker named Ron Anderson commented, per a Politico report. “He’s gonna save us again.”
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Trump has repeatedly promised to enact tariffs on China and Mexico if he wins the election, arguing that they have stolen jobs from U.S. workers and helped turn former manufacturing hot spots such as Detroit, Michigan into ghost towns.
Anderson’s comments in support of the former president’s economic plans mark a clean break with USW’s move to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in July.
At the time, the powerful labor union, which holds 1.2 million members and retirees, touted the vice president as “a crucial part of the most pro-labor administration of our lifetimes, backing innumerable initiatives to help advance the interests of working families.”
However, many members weren’t in line with the leadership, including one local Pennsylvania group, “Steelworkers for Trump,” which credited Trump with saving their jobs.
The steelworkers aren’t the only union members splitting with union bosses over Trump.
While the Teamsters, one of the most powerful labor unions in the country, refused to back Harris, it has also declined to endorse the former president, despite internal polling released last month that showed 59.6% of its 1.3 million members backed Trump.
Meanwhile, Trump allies have touted internal support from the United Auto Workers Union, who formally endorsed Harris in July.
“We were talking to [UAW] auto workers all summer, four or five months, and I would ask them, I do my own poll, ‘What’s it like inside? Are they voting for Trump? How’s our support?’” a Trump surrogate said during a recent campaign rally in Warren, Michigan.
Auto Workers for Trump founder: “The UAW members are voting for Donald Trump for President!”
MAGA
pic.twitter.com/G0XKRXGJhP
— Taxman
“They’d say ‘majority.’ You got 65 or 70%. We’re not voting for Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris. … UAW members are voting for Donald Trump,” he continued.
Harris continues to boast support from most labor unions across the country, with a member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America introducing her at a Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, event Monday afternoon.
“We have to put everything we’ve got into fighting for Kamala Harris in these final hours because the stakes for workers in Pennsylvania are too high not to,” union member Glen Arthur said as he welcomed the vice president onstage.
Still, the International Longshoremen’s Association and the International Association of Fire Fighters’ move to also withhold an endorsement from the Harris campaign has top Democrats grumbling.
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“The rank-and-file union members is one thing. The leadership in unions, that’s more political than what I’m doing right now. They have to cover their butt on their things,” Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who is Harris’s vice presidential running mate, said during an appearance on the SmartLess podcast that aired Monday. “And I’m as frustrated as you are on this.”
With millions of voters, including many union workers across Pennsylvania, heading to the polls on Tuesday to cast their ballots, Trump holds a razor-thin edge over Harris in the Keystone State.