Union members voted for Biden after Trump 'abandoned' them: AFL-CIO president

While decisive states in the upper midwest continued to count presidential votes on Wednesday, the president of the nation’s largest union federation AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, said the group’s members voted in “fairly high numbers” for Joe Biden in the so-called “Blue Wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that Donald Trump won in 2016.

Trumka, whose labor group backed Biden in the race, said many of the federation’s members voted for Biden because the Trump administration had “abandoned” workers through its failure to contain the novel coronavirus, involve workers in the nation’s economic recovery, or protect essential workers on the job.

“In fairly high numbers, our members voted for Joe Biden in those states across the ‘Blue Wall,’” said Trumka, who leads a coalition representing 56 unions and 12.5 million workers nationwide.

“If you want to get the economy back moving again, you can’t do that until the pandemic is under control. And you can’t get the pandemic under control until you protect essential workers,” Trumka told Yahoo Finance Live. “This administration really has abandoned us.”

Trumka’s comments align with exit poll data from NBC News that suggests Biden recaptured some of the vote from union households in states like Michigan and Wisconsin. Biden won 61% of Michigan voters in union households and 62% of Wisconsin voters in union households, the exit poll data from NBC News found. In both states, the exit poll showed Trump’s union support at less than 40%.

After the 2016 election, observers cited a decline in support among union households for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in “Blue Wall” states as a key reason for her narrow loss to Trump in all three states. The AFL-CIO endorsed Clinton in that race.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Biden led Trump by roughly 20,000 votes in Wisconsin, equivalent to a 0.6 percentage point lead; he led Trump by roughly 45,000 votes in Michigan, which amounts to a 0.9 percentage point advantage, according to The New York Times.

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania Biden trailed Trump by roughly 464,000 votes, an 8.1 percentage point deficit, The New York Times said. Outstanding votes remained in all three states in results published by the Times, most notably in Pennsylvania, where approximately 20% of the vote had yet to be tallied.

The Pennsylvania chapter of the AFL-CIO includes about 900,000 workers, while more than more than 1 million workers belong to its state chapter in Michigan. A total of the group’s workers in Wisconsin was not immediately available.

Trumka expressed confidence that working-class votes will help Biden ultimately win all three “Blue Wall” states and Minnesota, securing his victory nationwide.

“When they’re counted in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, we’ll win those states and Biden will become president,” he said.

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