The Teamsters Union, representing more than one million union workers, will not endorse any candidate in 2024’s presidential election even as polling reveals that the majority of members support former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris.
“The Teamsters thank all candidates for meeting with members face-to-face during our unprecedented roundtables,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said in a statement:
Unfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business. We sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries — and to honor our members’ right to strike — but were unable to secure those pledges. [Emphasis added]
On Wednesday, the union released polling taken of Teamsters members showing that almost 60 percent support Trump while just 34 percent support Harris. In a prior townhall straw poll from April through July, before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, 44 percent of members said they supported Biden while 36 percent said they backed Trump.
Teamsters executives said the polling “showed no majority support for Vice President Harris and no universal support among the membership for President Trump.”
“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,” Teamsters executives wrote in a press release. “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.”
Specifically, the announcement is a blow to Harris. In the 2020 presidential race, the Teamsters Union endorsed Biden and Harris over Trump’s re-election bid.
Harris reportedly snubbed O’Brien after he gave a historic speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) that vowed to work with any GOP lawmakers, including Trump, on issues facing the nation’s workforce.
“President Trump had the backbone to open the doors to this Republican convention, and that’s unprecedented. No other nominee in the race would’ve invited the Teamsters into this arena,” O’Brien said at the time.
Following the RNC speech, Harris did not invite O’Brien to speak at the Democratic National Convention (DNC).
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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