Union members decisive in the 2020 Presidential Election
Posted On: May 21, 2019
Bulletpoint No. 1: The union vote could be key in both the primary and the general election
In 2016, unionized workers were essential in helping Hillary Clinton maintain her lead over Bernie Sanders. Although a handful of major unions endorsed Sanders, most of the biggest ones — including the NEA, the SEIU, AFSCME, UFCW and the UAW — endorsed Clinton. And while some of those unions’ members defected to Sanders, Clinton mostly held the support of their rank and file, with Clinton winning union voters 62-36 over Sanders, per the Cooperative Congressional Election Study.
So it’s not surprising that Joe Biden kicked off his campaign on Monday by touting his endorsement from the International Association of Fire Fighters. It’s also not surprising that President Trump, perhaps sensing that Biden was encroaching on his turf, spent much of Wednesday morning retweeting accounts from firefighters who said they were planning to vote for Trump. Most union members voted Democratic in 2016 — but Trump did much better with them than Mitt Romney had four years earlier.
Nor was Trump’s union support merely a matter of white men shifting en masse to Trump. While white women and nonwhite men in unions mostly voted for Clinton, her margins with those groups were considerably narrower than Barack Obama’s in 2012.
Union voters shifted toward Trump in 2016
Presidential vote share among union members in 2012 and 2016, by race and gender
All labor union members
Year
Margin
2012
Obama
64.8%
Romney
30.4%
+34.4
2016
Clinton
55.2
Trump
38.4
+16.7
White men in labor unions
Year
Margin
2012
Obama
52.3%
Romney
41.9%
+10.5
2016
Clinton
40.7
Trump
52.5
-11.9
Nonwhite men in labor unions
Year
Margin
2012
Obama
81.4%
Romney
13.9%
+67.5
2016
Clinton
73.2
Trump
18.6
+54.7
White women in labor unions
Year
Margin
2012
Obama
64.5%
Romney
31.0%
+33.5
2016
Clinton
55.7
Trump
38.6
+17.2
Nonwhite women in labor unions
Year
Margin
2012
Obama
88.5%
Romney
8.9%
+79.7
2016
Clinton
83.0
Trump
12.9
+70.2
In fact, the shift among union voters was enough to swing the election to Trump. According to the CCES, Obama won union voters by 34.4 percentage points in 2012, but Clinton did so by only 16.7 points in 2016. That roughly 18-point swing was worth a net of 1.2 percentage points for Trump in Pennsylvania, 1.1 points in Wisconsin and 1.7 points in Michigan based on their rates of union membership1 — and those totals were larger than his margins of victory in those states.
by Nate Silver, Silver Bullets, May 2, 2019
Livingston & McLean Counties Bldg & Trades Council