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Teamsters Won’t Endorse Kamala, Members Support Trump

Teamsters Won’t Endorse Kamala, Members Support Trump

byAnastasia Boushee
September 19, 2024

The Teamsters Union has announced that, despite internal polls showing the majority of members support former President Donald Trump, the union will not be endorsing any candidate in the 2024 presidential election.

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien made the announcement in a statement.

“The Teamsters thank all candidates for meeting with members face-to-face during our unprecedented roundtables,” the statement began.

“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,” he claimed. “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.”

This statement came just a few hours after the union released internal polls showing that nearly 60% of members support Trump and only 31% support Vice President Kamala Harris. This is a massive shift in the union’s polls from just a few months ago, as a prior townhall straw poll before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race showed that 44% of members supported Biden and 36% supported Trump.

However, the Teamsters Union’s response to these poll results was unbelievably shocking, as many pointed to the clear double standard in a statement from the union executives — which explained that there would be no endorsement because the polling “showed no majority support for Vice President Harris and no universal support among the membership for President Trump.”

So, in order to endorse the Democrat, there only needed to be majority support — while in order to endorse the Republican, the union required “universal support.”

Social media users were outraged over the statement, with People’s Pundit Rich Baris noting: “They openly admit to a double-standard, and held an impossible one for the majority of members.”

Meanwhile, other social media users pointed out that even though the Teamsters did not endorse Trump, the announcement is a massive blow to the Harris campaign — as Democrats have always been able to rely on union support, and the Teamsters have consistently endorsed Democrats since the 1990s.

Trump himself has treated the news as a de facto endorsement, telling reporters: “It’s a great honor. They’re not going to endorse the Democrats. That’s a big thing!”

Democrats, on the other hand, are not handling the endorsement well — with a clearly frustrated White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refusing to comment on the news when asked during Wednesday’s press briefing.

Some have argued that the Teamsters’ decision not to issue an endorsement may also have been prompted by the Democrats’ decision to snub O’Brien when he requested to speak at the Democrat National Convention (DNC). They reportedly ignored his request because he dared to give a speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC), becoming the first union president in the organization’s 121-year history to speak at a Republican convention.

Author
Anastasia Boushee
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