Vice President Kamala Harris has secured a lead over former President Donald Trump among union voters in Pennsylvania, according to a new poll.
The swing state’s vote has been a closely monitored predictor of who will emerge victorious in the November presidential election.
While Trump was leading with union voters 50 percent to 45 percent in July, the Republican presidential nominee is now trailing 56.8 percent to 42 percent, the Emerson College poll released Friday showed.
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump holds a news conference outside Trump National Golf Club Bedminster on August 15 in Bedminster, New Jersey. Trump is losing his support among union voters in Pennsylvania.
Adam Gray/Getty Images
In a conversation with Tesla founder and billionaire Elon Musk this week, Trump appeared to endorse union-busting measures.
“I look at what you do,” Trump said to Musk. “You walk in and say, ‘You want to quit?’ I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike, and you say, ‘That’s OK. You’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone.'”
While Trump has not revealed which company he was referring to, some election experts believe this could hurt him in swing states like Pennsylvania.
The United Auto Workers (UAW) union filed charges of unfair labor practices against Trump and Musk, alleging that they likely intimidated workers who would otherwise consider joining a labor union.
Specifically, the UAW accuses Trump and Musk of “illegal attempts to threaten and intimidate workers who stand up for themselves by engaging in protected concerted activity, such as strikes.”
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain referred to Trump as a “scab” and said Trump was against “everything our union stands for.”
“When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean,” he said. “When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean.”
While union workers tend to vote for the Democratic candidate in national elections, Trump’s support was strong among the voting bloc before his comments. This was likely because unions contain a large number of blue-collar workers, whom Trump won over in the 2016 election.
Unions typically have considerable power in elections because their endorsements can give rise to key voter mobilization, especially in swing states like Pennsylvania.
Trump has been seen by many as a champion for the working class, but some of his decisions as president restricted the power of unions. He opposed the PRO Act, which would have made it easier for employees to conduct union campaigns and punish companies that infringed workers from this type of conduct.
“Trump’s decline in support among union voters in Pennsylvania is no surprise,” HR consultant and workers’ rights expert Bryan Driscoll told Newsweek. “Voters routinely rank jobs as the number one issue in this election. Yet here we have Trump bragging about, or at the very least, discussing the firing of striking workers, which is not only illegal but profoundly tone-deaf.”
International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien accepted an invitation to speak at the Republican National Convention, but the group has not endorsed Trump.
“His alignment with billionaires like Musk, who openly disregard labor laws, reveals just how out of touch he is with the real concerns of working-class people,” Driscoll said. “Union voters, and voters in general, are seeing through the facade, realizing Trump’s brand of populism doesn’t actually protect their jobs or their rights.”
In swing states Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, between 14 percent and 21 percent of voters were in a union household during the 2020 election.
President Joe Biden, whom Harris has served under as vice president, distinguished himself as pro-union. And while Harris has not made her union policies clear, she has a solid history of supporting unions, with UAW and several others already endorsing her.
“Donald Trump will always side against workers standing up for themselves, and he will always side with billionaires like Elon Musk, who is contributing $45 million a month to a Super PAC to get him elected,” Fain said.
“Both Trump and Musk want working-class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It’s disgusting, illegal and totally predictable from these two clowns.”
Newsweek reached out to Trump and Harris for comment via email.
