We have more fuel for the "Weirdest Presidential Election Ever" bonfire today.
Ever since Kamala Harris eagerly stepped over the corpse of Joe Biden's political career on July 21, the prevailing narrative from the mainstream media hacks has been that Madame Veep is receiving nothing but love from traditional Democratic voting blocs. For the most part, Big Labor has fallen in line and gotten behind Harris. The public sector unions will never bail on the Dems en masse.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has been bucking tradition of late, though.
First, back in July, Teamsters president Sean O'Brien became the first leader of the union ever to speak at a Republican National Convention. That was especially significant because, at the time, Teamsters internal polling revealed rank-and-file support for Joe Biden. Biden had almost a half century in the Senate to dole out favors to Big Labor, so that wasn't surprising.
Things started getting really wonky after Harris was anointed. The polling greatly (Bigly?) shifted to Trump:
TEAMSTERS RELEASE PRESIDENTIAL ENDORSEMENT POLLING DATA
— Teamsters (@Teamsters) September 18, 2024
“For the past year, the Teamsters Union has pledged to conduct the most inclusive, democratic, and transparent Presidential endorsement process in the history of our 121-year-old organization—and today we are delivering on… pic.twitter.com/CnFNN9uosx
President LOLEightyonemillion only had a single-digit lead over Trump, which was beyond anemic for a Democrat. As you can see, Trump then opened up a 25+ point lead on Harris rather quickly. That's not weird; it's monumental. A seismic shift, if you will.
The shift began in 2016, when private sector labor union members voted for a Republican for president for the first time in their lives. In late 2017, I was on a 90-minute-long Japanese television show that interviewed nine Trump detractors and nine Trump supporters. There were two union guys on the supporter side, one a steel union boss from Pennsylvania who had never voted for a Republican for anything.
Given all of the above, it would seem like the choice for a Teamsters presidential endorsement for this cycle is a no-brainer, right?
Yeah, not so much. This is from the official statement on the Teamsters site:
After reviewing six months of nationwide member polling and wrapping up nearly a year of rank-and-file roundtable interviews with all major candidates for the presidency, the union was left with few commitments on top Teamsters issues from either former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris—and found no definitive support among members for either party’s nominee.
In data publicly released earlier in the day, President Joe Biden won the support of Teamsters voting in straw polls at local unions between April-July prior to his exit from the race. But in independent electronic and phone polling from July-September, a majority of voting members twice selected Trump for a possible Teamsters endorsement over Harris.
We can pause for a moment for everyone to say WHAT THE <insert expletive or sanitized word of choice>?!?!?
I'm curious to find out how the union's hierarchy defines "definitive." The statement does go on to say that there is "no universal support among the membership for President Trump." It's highly unlikely that "universal support" was the criterion for previous endorsements.
It could be argued that the inclusion of the pro-Trump poll results in the statement about not making an endorsement is, in fact, a soft endorsement. The Teamsters bosses are getting the point across without upsetting the balance of the labor union universe by committing an endorsement to a Republican. It's timid, but it can still be spun by Trump and his people, which it was rather quickly in an email from the campaign. Rest assured that the "Teamsters love me" talking point will be making its debut in Trump's next stump speech.
These are the voters Trump needs to win most of the swing states, so this is very good news. My contention all along has been that anyone in flyover country who is still on the fence — Republican, Democrat, or independent — isn't open to being swayed by a Californian. Yeah, the Coastal Media Bubble™ elites have nonetheless entered into a collective hallucination about the greatness of Kamala Harris.
Meanwhile, Joe and Edna Unionworker in Flyover, USA, are staring at their grocery and gas bills.
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