Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian: https://bit.ly/4fCOfKE

The dust has settled on the landslide election for the GOP, after which they will now control the House, Senate and Presidency. The last few weeks have brought on a period of soul-searching for the Democrat Party, now seriously re-considering who they represent. It has been well-documented that Latino and black voters backed the Republican Party in unprecedented numbers, expanding the GOP coalition.

One area that should be looked at more closely is the walkout on the Democrats by unions and the working class. After declaring themselves to be the “most pro-union administration in American history,” Joe Biden and Kamala Harris found few allies in middle class Americans at the ballot box this November. Pew Research Center found in a 2023 survey that roughly 59 percent of union workers tended to lean toward the Democrats, with 39 percent opting instead for the Republican Party. Trump closed this gap significantly in the 2024 election, according to a CNN exit poll. Just 53 percent of union households voted for Kamala Harris, while Donald Trump’s share of the union vote ballooned to 45 percent, bringing a 20-point advantage for Democrats down to just eight points.

How could it be that the Vice President of the “most pro-union administration in history” lost so much ground? The answer is that the Biden-Harris administration has focused merely on pleasing union bosses, and union leaders have become out of touch with their rank-and-file union members. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) released data less than three weeks out from Election Day showing that 99.9 percent of donations made by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) PAC went to Democrat candidates. It doesn’t stop there. Donations from all public sector unions to Democrats outweighed donations to Republicans by a factor of 20 to 1. Put simply, workers are not feeling represented by their union bosses and these feelings were validated when Harris went all-in on the so-called Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.

This divisive bill would have undone secret ballot initiatives in union elections. A critical measure such as this is what allowed workers to express their concern about the direction or activities of the union, free from fearing for their job security or intimidation from union operatives. More distressingly, the PRO Act would have compelled employers to provide union organizers with the sensitive information of employees, including home addresses, cell phone numbers and email addresses. This opens the door for blackmailing of workers that are merely seeking representation. The consequences can be dangerous.

In the 2023 financial year, the National Education Association (NEA) spent an eye-watering 56 percent of its $89 million revenue stream buying political favors, almost all from Democrats. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who notably refused to endorse President Trump despite Teamsters members supporting him by a 2 to 1 margin, admitted that the Democrat Party “lost touch” with working-class voters:

“Social issues are important, but at the end of the day, it’s putting food on the table, being able to afford a home, and despite the rhetoric of ‘this is the best economy ever’ it really hasn’t been. So, I believe it came down to an economic decision.”

This is the same union that had its pension fund bailed out by President Biden to the tune of $83 billion funded by taxpayers in one of his first acts as President. Not only that, but Biden was the first President to walk a strike picket line too. Democrats are now dealing with the harsh reality that middle class voters cannot be bought out by handouts, photo ops and burdensome labor regulations that drive up inflation and the cost of goods.

The Trump-Vance campaign made clear their opposition to the Biden-Harris PRO Act and they were rewarded by working-class voters at the ballot box on November 5. They now have a clear mandate from middle class America to enact meaningful reforms such as further extending the revolutionary Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and protecting right-to-work states from union bosses’ exploitation.