Unions helped Democrats win big in 2026. Now they want to act

This year, when Brody Rutledge wasn’t working 60 hours a week and raising his four children, he was busy contributing to Democrats’ political victories.

The 25-year-old was among a group of Ohio union members who planned social media blitzes in support of Amy Acton’s campaign for governor and Sherrod Brown’s effort to win back a Senate seat. At lunchtime, during recess and after his children went to bed, the electrician created posts and videos to help raise awareness of both candidates among working-class voters.

The posts attracted more than 15,000 views.

Rutledge’s efforts paid off: Acton and Brown won their respective elections, part of the blue wave that brought Democrats to power in Washington and in legislatures across America, including in many states, like Ohio, that were considered Republican-leaning or reliably Republican.

“People are realizing there has to be a change,” Rutledge told CNBC. “We are extremely excited about the results.”

Rutledge was part of what the labor movement considered one of its greatest political efforts to date. Unions spent millions of dollars and mobilized thousands of members to turn out Democratic votes in the midterm elections. Today, they expect newly elected politicians to deliver.

Democrats, they say, must bring inflation under control, put in place protections for workers and create union jobs.

Historical mobilization

The AFL-CIO launched a seven-figure paid media campaign for the election and said its members since Labor Day had engaged with nearly 15 million voters. By the AFL-CIO’s tally, more than 600 members of the unions themselves were elected in the midterms, including dozens on their way to Washington and hundreds on their way to statehouses.

The CNBC poll of voters shows that midterm voters who were union members or lived in a union household favored Democrats over Republicans by a margin of 22 percentage points, the highest in the last four election cycles. This is more than double the margin for the rest of the electorate: if we consider voters from non-union households, the gap has narrowed to 10 percentage points.

“We are very proud of the impact the labor movement has had on this election,” said Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, a federation of unions that represents nearly 15 million workers. “It was our biggest and boldest effort.”

In some cases, unions became involved before party candidates had been nominated.

In Michigan, the United Auto Workers organized behind Democrat Abdul El-Sayed ahead of what became a contentious primary for U.S. Senate that he ultimately won over Haley Stevens. The union estimates that about one in 10 voters in the August primary were members of the UAW.

“It had an incredible impact,” Connor Farrell, a progressive fundraiser who worked with El-Sayed, said of the UAW’s support. “I’m not sure we would have won without them.”

El-Sayed and Jocelyn Benson – the Democratic candidate for governor of Michigan, who also enjoyed support from the UAW – were victorious in last week’s general election. It’s a stark turnaround for the Wolverine State, which supported President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2024.

The UAW held a rally on the eve of Election Day, headlined by El-Sayed and Benson, alongside other Democrats running for statewide office. The Detroit-based union said its volunteers knocked on more than 100,000 doors and made half a million phone calls for the election.

The CNBC poll of voters showed that union households made up about 22% of the Michigan electorate in the 2026 midterms, above the national average of 16%. Michigan Union Households defeated El-Sayed and Benson by above-average margins of 25 and 27 points, respectively.

“There is a direct correlation between a ballot box and a bread box,” said UAW President Shawn Fain, who described the union’s 2026 political efforts as the most important of his lifetime. “What we negotiate today can be taken into the legislative halls tomorrow.”

In Nevada, another swing state, AFL-CIO union members campaigned for a slate of candidates, including Aaron Ford, the Democrat who unseated Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo. In elections, the AFL-CIO supported candidates for state Assembly, mayor, and city council.

Vladimir Ortega, a member of the National Association of Letter Carriers living north of Las Vegas, said his dissatisfaction with how Republicans had handled the economy led him to volunteer to canvass with the AFL-CIO for the first time. The 34-year-old has met with Ford and other candidates at political events, and he plans to volunteer for AFL-CIO-backed candidates again in 2028.

“People felt like they had to be there,” Ortega said. “Their money is hurting them and they want to do something.”

Break the discomfort

For generations, union voters and their families have been a central bloc of the Democratic base. But the party’s iron grip on the labor movement has diminished in recent election cycles as union members, like other working-class voters, have become frustrated with high inflation and affordability problems, according to Paul Clark, a professor at Pennsylvania State University.

The National Election Pool poll showed that union households voted for Democrats by margins of 16 and 15 percentage points in the 2020 and 2022 elections, respectively. That figure shrank to just 8 points in 2024, when voters’ economic frustrations led Republicans to win Washington’s power trio: the presidency and both houses of Congress.

The Teamsters declined to support Trump or former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, ending a long history of Democratic support. The union, which has more than 1 million members, said internal polls showed its members preferred Trump to Harris.

Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said on social media that he voted for Ashley Moody, the victorious Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Florida, in the 2026 midterms. The Teamsters did not respond to a request for comment from CNBC.

“Obviously, 2024 has been very disappointing for unions and the American labor movement,” said Penn State’s Clark, author of books on collective bargaining and organized labor. “This has caused some soul-searching on the part of unions regarding their political strategies and how they communicate with their members about policy.”

This time around, there appears to be more enthusiasm among card-carrying union members heading to the polls. An AFL-CIO poll showed 83% of union voters were “very motivated” to vote, an increase of 10 points from the last midterm elections in 2022.

After their midterm defeat, Clark said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Republicans courting unions ahead of the 2028 presidential election. But that could prove an uphill battle, given the party’s history of championing the interests of business over those of workers, Clark said.

Great expectations

Looking ahead, unions have high expectations of Democrats after helping the party rise to power in Washington and state capitols across the country.

In Ohio, Rutledge said his chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers aims to ensure that new data center construction projects use union labor. In Michigan, UAW President Fain said the union expects a majority-Democratic legislature to approve a law guaranteeing unemployment insurance to striking workers.

“The days of blindly giving our support to people based on their party affiliation are over,” Fain said. “They will deserve our support.”

If Democrats don’t act when they have a legislative majority in Washington, union leaders warn they will withdraw their support in 2028 and beyond.

Across the country, Shuler, the AFL-CIO president, said union voters went to the polls last week hoping to pass policy that would level the economic playing field. The CNBC poll of voters found that 70% of respondents believed the U.S. economy favored the wealthy over the middle and working class.

“Republican, Democrat, independent, we will be with you if you are with us,” Shuler said. “It turns out we had a big wave of Democratic candidates who were talking about working class issues.”