Rank-and-file members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters back former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, according to a new poll, though the union says it will not back a candidate this election cycle.
The Teamsters union, which represents truckers and UPS drivers, released internal polling of its membership Wednesday, finding that 58% of members support Trump compared to 31% who back Harris.
“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 that promise to our members,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said in a press release.
“Our members are the union, and their voices and opinions must be at the forefront of everything the Teamsters do,” he added.
But the 1.3 million-member organization followed up by announcing it would not endorse either candidate, saying neither made enough “serious commitments” to the union’s issues to secure its backing.
The news comes two days after O’Brien met with Harris at the union’s Washington, D.C., headquarters and two months after he raised eyebrows in political circles by speaking at the Republican National Convention.
Labor leaders have largely backed Harris’s candidacy and historically back Democrats, so even a nonendorsement from the Teamsters can be considered a major political victory for Trump.
“The vast majority of rank-and-file working men and women in this important organization want President Donald Trump back in the White House,” the Trump campaign said in a statement shortly after the poll was released. “President Trump’s agenda will bring tax relief and reverse the inflation that hurts working families the most.”
The Teamsters union is largely male and noncollege educated, a demographic that tends to support Trump, so the polling result is not surprising in that sense. But the lack of an endorsement bucks recent history.
The Teamsters backed every Democratic presidential candidate from 2000 to 2020 and made no endorsement in the 1996 election. It did endorse Republican Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush in decades gone by.
O’Brien has stressed throughout this election that he is not interested in what party a candidate represents but in what they can do to help his membership.
“Well, listen, we interviewed both candidates, and we were seeking commitments from both candidates. And we couldn’t get solid commitments on our core issues, like the PRO Act, like vetoing national right to work, like staying out of labor disputes and not trying to force any contracts on us, like what happened to our brothers and sisters in the rail industry,” O’Brien explained Wednesday on Fox News’s Your World with Neil Cavuto. “We didn’t get solid commitments from either candidate, which was a major factor in our decision as a general executive board not to endorse any candidate.”
O’Brien does not always see eye to eye with Trump. He lashed out at the former president last month over antistrike comments Trump made to X owner Elon Musk, which O’Brien blasted as “economic terrorism.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not respond directly when asked about the Teamsters polling results.
“This is a president and a vice president that has fought hard for unions throughout the administration,” she said. “In the past 3 1/2 years, [Joe Biden] has been called the most pro-union president ever. The president is very proud to have that title.”
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In the Teamsters members polls, Trump fared worse against Biden, who exited the presidential race this summer. An initial survey conducted before Biden dropped out found that the president led his predecessor 44.3% to 36.3% among members.
But Harris took Biden’s spot at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket amid fears the president would lose the White House and hurt congressional candidates, and she now trails Trump by 27 points among Teamsters membership. The Washington Examiner has contacted the Harris campaign seeking comment.
