From Kentucky Lantern: With starkly different records, Trump, Harris court union voters
By ROBERT FORRANT, The Conversation
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump are in a tight race for the White House. Every voting bloc will count – including members of labor unions and other people in their households.
The majority of union leaders have over generations endorsed Democratic candidates, and this race is no exception. Although rank-and-file union members have also historically sided with the Democratic Party by large margins, that support has wavered for at least the past 45 years. In 2016, exit polls indicated that voters in union households supported Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over Trump by only 8 percentage points, down from 18 percentage points in 2012 when Barack Obama was on the ballot.
No Democratic presidential nominee had fared worse with union voters since Ronald Reagan’s wins over Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale in 1980 and 1984.