The Teamsters announced that they would not endorse anyone for President two days after the union’s leaders met with Vice President Kamala Harris and months after meeting with President Donald Trump.
“Neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business,” Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said in a statement.
He added, “We sought commitments from both [former president Donald] Trump and [Vice President Kamala] Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries—and to honor our members’ right to strike—but were unable to secure those pledges.”
The union’s decision comes two days after senior leaders met with Harris to weigh whom to endorse.
The Teamsters, representing truck drivers, freight workers, and others, held similar meetings with Trump and President Joe Biden when he was still seeking re-election.
The union, which has 1.3 million members, is one of the largest in the world. A vice president at large of the union, John Palmer, said the union collected input on an endorsement from its members through straw polling and a QR poll from a code printed on a union magazine.
On Wednesday, the union released the results of their survey, which was conducted after Biden dropped out of the race. It found that almost 60% of rank-and-file union members preferred to endorse Trump, while 34% backed Harris.
The Teamsters supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. They also backed Barack Obama in both of his presidential runs, John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000.
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