The Teamsters betrayed their own workers — and Republicans fell for it again

Last week, the Ohio Conference of Teamsters endorsed Sherrod Brown for the U.S. Senate in 2026. Not a surprise for anyone who has been paying attention to how union leadership actually operates. But for Republicans wondering if the organization represents something new in American labor politics, this endorsement of Brown says more than two years of press releases ever did.Brown is a Democrat running in a state that President Donald Trump has won three times. With this endorsement, the Ohio Conference of Teamsters did not weigh which candidate could best deliver for their members in a closely divided Senate. They chose the Democrat. That choice should be considered against the image the broader Teamsters organization has carefully cultivated to appeal to Republicans.Federal campaign finance data clearly show the pattern. The Teamsters gave 92% of their political contributions to Democrats in the 2024 cycle. In 2022, it was 97.5%. In 2020, 97%. In 2018, 96%. Going back to 1990, there is not a single election cycle in which the Teamsters gave Republicans more than 16% of their federal contributions. Yet the organization’s own internal polling in 2024 showed that a clear majority of members preferred a Trump endorsement over Harris. The leadership simply ignored it. The Teamsters stay in lock step with the rest of Big Labor. In the 2024 election cycle, House Democrats received far more labor contributions than House Republicans. Senate Democrats received the overwhelming share as well. The United Auto Workers endorsed Kamala Harris for president. The AFL-CIO, representing 60 unions and 12.5 million workers, unanimously endorsed Kamala Harris in July 2024. This came after they had already made the earliest presidential endorsement in AFL-CIO history to back Joe Biden in June 2023. It’s no different with the teachers’ unions. The National Education Association raised roughly $27 million through its PAC for the 2024 election cycle, with roughly 98% of contributions going to Democrats.Union dues flow to union PACs. Union PACs flow to Democrats. The leadership of these organizations has traded worker advocacy for a subscription model that funds their political allies, and the machine runs the same way regardless of what Republicans do or what rank-and-file members actually want. Time and again, the organization overrides the preferences of the very workers it claims to represent.The Ohio endorsement puts this on full display at exactly the right moment. Republicans hold the Senate majority. Republicans control the House. Trump needs to have a Republican Congress to deliver on his agenda. If there were ever a moment when the organization might recalibrate, extend an olive branch, or at least consider rewarding members of the governing coalition who have moved toward them on trade and manufacturing policy, this would be it. Instead, they endorsed a Democrat in a critical state, against a Republican-controlled Senate, the only body capable of advancing legislation that union leadership claims to support.When union leaders demanded policy concessions from Republicans in exchange for cooperation or neutrality, some Republicans obliged. I have been around DC enough to know what happens next: the concessions get made, and the money and endorsements go to Democrats anyway. A Republican who bends on policy to earn organizational support reaps what they sow.The rank-and-file members who voted for Trump, who support Republican candidates with their own money, and who disagree with the political choices their leadership makes on their behalf deserve better. Many of these workers backed Trump and Republican policies at the ballot box. The organization’s own polling confirmed the gap between membership preferences and leadership decisions. Yet the organization continues to act against those preferences with dues-funded PACs and endorsements. The conversation about workers’ interests belongs with those workers directly, not with institutions that have directed 92 to 97 cents of every political dollar to Democrats for thirty-plus years.REPUBLICANS ARE ABOUT TO MAKE A NEW BILLION-DOLLAR UNION IN COLLEGE SPORTS WORLDTake this endorsement for what it is: A reminder that union leadership is not a constituency to be won over through policy compromise. The money, the endorsements, and the organizing power will go to the Democrat machine when it matters, even when the membership clearly leans the other way. Republicans who want to compete for workers should advance policies that grow paychecks and expand opportunity, and they should stop treating national union leadership as votes that can be won.Thirty years of data already answered that question. This Ohio endorsement just confirmed it.Gene Hamilton is Senior Advisor for the Coalition to Protect American Workers.