The International Brotherhood of Teamsters released polling data of its members Wednesday that showed former President Donald Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris among members of the union by a substantial margin.
The union, which boasts more than a million members nationally, polled its members and found that nearly 60% planned on voting for Trump over Harris. But perhaps more notable was the fact that when facing off with President Joe Biden, who withdrew from the race in July, Trump actually trailed 44%-36%.
The poll likely contributed to the fact that the Teamsters declined to endorse a presidential candidate, a departure from previous cycles when the union endorsed every Democratic Party nominee in the 21st century.
For Harris and the Democrats, the nonendorsement is a huge blow. But even more so is the fact that Teamsters members were willing to back Biden but not her, a sign that her candidacy may accelerate the class realignment within the Democratic Party, complicating her path to victory and more visibly turning the party away from its historic working-class roots and into the party of corporations and the wealthy.
One of the most notable and enduring developments of the Trump era of the Republican Party has been the shift of working-class voters to the right after decades of supporting Democrats at the state and national levels. If the Teamsters poll is any indication, it appears that Biden and his “Scranton Joe” persona may have briefly slowed the working class’s rightward shift. But with him out of the picture, Harris is seemingly on track to struggle mightily among working-class voters. The results of the Teamsters poll only underscore that.
Harris is counting on creating a coalition that ignores working-class voters that once made up the Democratic base while counting on highly educated suburban voters to turn out for her in droves. But the problem with this approach is that the former group is much larger than the latter. Further complicating matters is the need to win the Electoral College.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
If support for Harris among working-class voters is really as low as the Teamsters poll indicates, her campaign is effectively dead in the water in the key swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, three states that have large white working-class populations that have been at the center of every winning Democratic coalition. It was these voters that propelled Trump to his 2016 victory and nearly won him the White House again in 2020, even as Biden reversed some of Trump’s 2016 gains among this group.
Republicans have an enormous opportunity to wrest working-class voters, many of whom belong to unions, away from the Democratic Party for good. Only time will tell if they are successful. For now at least, union voters have made it clear that their breakup with the Democratic Party is real.