Is Donald Trump a Working-Class Hero? – The American Spectator

Donald Trump is a Republican who supposedly has a special rapport with rank-and-file union members, at least compared to others in his party. He tried to send that message this week by giving a speech to the United Auto Workers instead of joining the Republican debate.

Union leaders are definitely not fans. UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement, “Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers.” (RELATED: A Dating Guide for Picket Lines: Trump vs. Biden)

Trump deals with that by simply talking past those leaders. In his speech Thursday to UAW workers, he rarely touched on union-specific policy. He instead claimed to be fighting for the workers by opposing the Biden Administration’s EV vehicle push (“Now they want to go electric and put you out of business!”) and standing up against China on trade. Fact-checkers will inevitably take issue with his individual claims, but that’s kind of beside the point: Trump is the only one talking about these issues to those voters. That’s probably enough to win those voters over.

How many votes that is, though, is anybody’s guess. Solid data on union voting patterns is surprisingly tough to find. The ones who know the data best are likely the union leaders themselves, and they’re not saying.

Trump has long had a sentimental fondness for unions. In The America We Deserve (2000), he wrote, “Is Trump a union man? Let me tell you this: Unions still have a place in American society. In fact, with the globalization craze in full heat, unions are about the only force reminding us to remember the American family.” He was even a member of the Screen Actors Guild for decades before quitting in 2021. (The union had threatened to expel him over the Jan. 6 riots.)

Historically, the union vote was up for grabs. The Teamsters endorsed Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984. Winning the union vote again would be a coup for the GOP, cutting off a major source of funds and get-out-the-vote resources Democrats have relied on.

Why Union Polling Data Is Hard to Find

Here’s what the recent national exit poll data says: Hillary Clinton beat Trump among union households 51-43 percent in 2016, and Biden beat Trump among the same group 56-40 percent in 2020. Trump nevertheless did better than Mitt Romney, who lost union households to Barack Obama 58-40 percent in 2012, though the difference isn’t huge. Others did even worse: John McCain lost those voters to Obama 59-39 percent in 2008, and Al Gore beat George W. Bush 59-37 percent in 2000.

But wait, back up, what does “union household” mean? Is that just another term for union voters? Not exactly. The exit polls typically do not ask voters if they are in a union. Rather, they ask if voters are part of a “union household,” i.e. if they have a spouse or a live-in family member who is a union member. Pollsters apparently assume that those entire households vote pro-union. That’s an antiquated notion, though. What if the person being polled disagrees with and/or doesn’t get along with their union family member? (READ MORE: UAW Workers: Be Careful What You Wish For)

The exit polls, for whatever reason, broke with tradition in 2004 and asked voters both if they were in union households and if they were union members. Of the 14 percent who said they were in unions (a figure that matches Labor Department surveys), the vote was 61-38 percent for Democrat John Kerry over George W. Bush. The household numbers, by comparison, were 59-40 percent for Kerry, a four-point swing in Bush’s favor. So, the union household numbers don’t give the best picture.

Trump May Already Be Close to Winning Union Workers Over

Outside of exit polls, there is little data available. Most pollsters just don’t bother. The one entity that does reportedly poll union members is the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation. However, it never releases the full data to the public. Instead, it releases select data when that helps its message.

The late AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka caused a stir in 2017 when he told reporters, “In the last election President Trump got 3 percentage points more of our members than Mitt Romney did. Unfortunately, Hillary [Clinton] got 10 percent of our members less than Barack Obama did. They either didn’t vote or they voted for a third-party candidate.” The exit polls, by contrast, had Clinton down only seven points among union households compared with Obama.

Note that Trumka didn’t say what his organization’s precise poll numbers were. This was typical of how the AFL-CIO dribbled out the data. In a September 2016 posting, the AFL-CIO said its internal polling showed “the more union members hear about Donald Trump — he supports dangerous right-to-work laws, refuses to negotiate with working people who formed a union at his hotel and ignores union issues — the less they like him.” But again, without releasing actual numbers. (READ MORE: Joe Biden, the Man Ruining Workers, Disguises Himself as One)

The conventional wisdom in labor policy circles is that Trump does well among the older manufacturing and skilled trade union voters, but not because of his union policies. It’s just an extension of his appeal to blue-collar workers generally — the same type of people who generally support gun rights and are boycotting Bud Light.