A heavy tile fell on the head of Kamala Harris. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the powerful American truckers’ union, has announced that it will not endorse any presidential candidate this year. This is bad news for the vice president: in fact, the union had been endorsing Democratic candidates since at least 2008. Not surprisingly, the same Washington Post spoke of a “blow to the Democrats”. Not only that. Shortly before making its decision known, the organization published a very recent internal survey, aimed at sounding out the moods of its members: it emerged that 58% said they were in favor of Donald Trumpwhile only 31% expressed support for her opponent. It is therefore quite obvious that, despite not having received a formal endorsement, the overall situation is in favor of the Republican candidate.
First of all, it is important to remember that this union has about 1.3 million members and that it is quite influential in some of the main key states: especially Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada. Well, given that all three polls give a fundamentally balanced picture, it cannot be ruled out that the Harris may suffer backlash locally due to the lack of endorsement. Secondly, the vice president also has to deal with a significant image problem: after receiving the support of other unions, she was evidently hoping to strengthen her narrative as a candidate close to the working class. And yet, the choice of the truck drivers, in addition to the aforementioned internal survey, has actually ruined her eggs in the basket. To make matters worse for the Democratic candidate is the fact that, in July, the union members supported Joe Biden with 44% of the votes compared to the 36% collected by Trump. This means that the Harrisas compared to Bidenhas lost significant ground to truckers.
The fact remains that relations between the union and the current American administration had deteriorated considerably. Three months ago, Reuters reported that the organization’s president, Sean O’Brienhad been deeply annoyed at not having obtained a meeting with the tenant of the White House on the issue of the bankruptcy of the transportation holding company, Yellow Corporation: a company that had almost all its employees members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. In addition, the union’s move could now strengthen the campaign of Trump which, after the debate of September 10, had entered a phase of relative difficulty. Indeed, one aspect to underline is that the organization has announced that it has commissioned its internal survey After the televised confrontation between the former president and the Harris. This is another element that could ruin the momentum that the vice president has registered in various polls in recent days. The game is still long and remains decidedly open. But the weaknesses of the Democratic candidate in the world of working class remain. And this, for her, is a vulnerability factor that should not be underestimated.
