Sam Cabral
Reporting from Washington

Image source, Getty Images

The Teamsters are the largest union in America and represent about 1.3 million members in the United States and Canada, including freight drivers and warehouse workers.

It was the only major union to support the 2024 presidential election so far – and has now declared for the first time since 1996 that it will not support a candidate.

This announcement, less than 50 days before Election Day, is a major blow to Harris’ campaign’s efforts to win over working-class voters. Teamsters membership is particularly high in the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

While the Teamsters have largely allied themselves with the more labor-friendly Democrats, President Sean O’Brien has expanded his contacts with Republicans in recent years.

As part of a concerted effort by the Trump campaign to garner the union’s support, O’Brien became the first Teamsters chief ever to speak at the Republican National Convention, addressing the party’s voters in prime-time in July of this year, even though he was not yet a Trump supporter at the time.

The Democrats, meanwhile, did not invite O’Brien to speak at the party’s national convention in August, even though Teamsters union members were represented at the three-day event.

Harris met with the Teamsters executive committee on Monday in what the New York Times described as a “sometimes tense” meeting. But before its decision on Wednesday, the union released polls showing support for Trump outnumbering Harris among its rank-and-file members by nearly two to one., external.

However, in announcing their decision not to endorse the candidate, the Teamsters stated that they had “received few commitments from either former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris on the Teamsters’ most important issues – and found no definitive support among members for either party’s candidate.”