A powerful labor union that endorsed President Joe Biden’s campaign early in the contentious 2020 Democratic primary is not endorsing a candidate this cycle.
The International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) executive board narrowly voted Thursday against endorsing a presidential candidate after listening to members’ views on the issues, the union announced. The vote not to endorse a candidate passed by a 1.2 percentage-point margin.
“The IAFF executive board determined that we are better able to advocate for our members and make progress on the issues that matter to them if we, as a union, are standing shoulder-to-shoulder. This decision, which we took very seriously, is the best way to preserve and strengthen our unity,” IAFF general president Edward Kelly said in a statement.
The IAFF represents over 300,000 members among fire fighters and emergency workers mostly in the U.S. and Canada. Its political action committee, FIREPAC, has given close to 80 percent of its political contributions to Democrats this cycle, according to non-partisan watchdog Open Secrets.
In 2019, the IAFF endorsed Joe Biden’s Democratic primary campaign, an early endorsement for Biden when his campaign lacked the activist energy of candidates such as Senators Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Ma.). Upon Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race in July, Kelly heaped praise on his presidency and five-decade track record of supporting the union.
“He is undoubtedly the greatest President fire fighters and emergency medical workers have ever had. Our membership — and the communities we serve — will forever be in his debt,” Kelly said.
The union’s decision not to endorse is the second recent high-profile instance of a powerful union declining to back a presidential candidate after receiving input from its members, a rare occurrence given the close relationships between Democratic politicians and most labor unions.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a consistently Democratic union of professional and working-class employees, did not endorse a candidate despite member polling that showed strong support for former president Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris. Teamsters president Sean O’Brien spoke at the 2024 GOP convention in July to close out the event’s first night.
Although conservatives, including Trump, have consistently sided against labor unions in recent decades, more working-class voters are moving into the Republican Party over concerns about immigration and the Democratic Party’s leftward lurch on hot-button cultural issues. Some conservatives have pushed the Republican Party to begin embracing organized labor and its membership to solidify the party’s recent working-class gains and reorient its economic policy in favor of more government intervention.
Four years ago, Harris aligned herself closely with the Democratic Party’s far-left activist base, and this time around she and her campaign have walked back many of her most progressive stances. With the presidential race coming down to the wire, Trump and Harris are hoping to court working-class voters to put them over the finish line in Rust Belt states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.