OSHKOSH, Wisconsin — On a crisp fall morning last week, a UPS worker donning a brown uniform rushed toward the warehouse here to start his shift when a group of fellow Teamsters handed him campaign literature supporting Kamala Harris for president.
The worker grew visibly agitated, gestured with his arms and raised his voice.
But he wasn’t angry at those offering him a sample ballot. He was going on about former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s 2011 war on unions that gutted labor power in the state. He also talked about how former President Donald Trump had promised to bring a deluge of work to the state, like through Foxconn, that never materialized.
“Don’t they remember the history of Republicans attacking unions? Their memories are so short,” the man said, incredulous that any union member in Wisconsin is now backing Trump. “This is great,” he said, holding up a sample ballot and separate flyers for Harris and Gov. Tim Walz, as well as to re-elect Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
It was just one of dozens of conversations that took place here over 90 minutes in between shifts at this UPS facility. Teamsters members who backed Harris carried out what’s considered by the campaign to be among the most persuasive of arguments: those made peer to peer. It was a slice of a broader strategy playing out again and again throughout Wisconsin as well as the battlegrounds of Michigan and Pennsylvania that aimed ultimately to reach white working class voters who surveys show prefer Trump in massive numbers.
A recent NBC News national poll showed Trump held a 56%-42% lead with white voters and a 65%-33% lead among whites without college degrees. Those numbers reflect the battle that’s up ahead for Harris’ team as it grinds out the final days of the campaign.
But with essential blue-wall battleground states still seemingly in a dead heat, according to polls, part of the strategy behind the Harris campaign has been to work at gaining at the margins among various groups that have favored Trump in the past.
This kind of union organizing is just one example of the various efforts — from reaching out to soft Republicans to canvassing rural counties — a well-funded Harris campaign has employed to target specific demographics with just 12 days to the Nov. 5 election.
“I will contrast this with the type of top-down astroturf organizing that Elon Musk is attempting somewhat unsuccessfully,” Josh Orton, Harris’ senior adviser for labor, said of the Teamsters efforts. “For these types of peer-to-peer conversations to be successful, to be trusted, to be persuasive, there has to be an existing relationship. There has to be trust, and it has to be based on facts.”
Sean O’Brien, the general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, announced last month that the national union would not endorse in the race, in what was considered a blow to Harris after the group backed President Joe Biden in 2020. (However, there were signs in July, according to Reuters reporting, that after Biden’s concerning debate performance the group was considering not endorsing.) After the news broke that the national organization wouldn’t endorse Harris, however, local Teamsters groups, including many of the largest, swiftly backed Harris. In all, the campaign says, 1.5 million Teamsters nationally have backed Harris.
Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, however, credited Trump for the lack of endorsement from the national union, saying he “neutralized the endorsement for the first time in decades.”
“Team Trump has a data-driven, people-powered ground operation in every single battleground state,” Leavitt said. “We have trained tens of thousands of volunteer captains, who are specifically focused on getting out the vote and encouraging Americans in their respective communities to vote for President Trump and President Trump has more enthusiasm on the ground than Kamala Harris, as reflected by the Real Clear Politics average that has him winning in every battleground state.”
Analysts, however, have warned of putting too much stock into that polling average, noting that it includes a bevy of surveys from red-leaning firms that can warp averages. Regardless, even those numbers hover within the margin of error.
Still, Leavitt pointed to an internal Teamsters survey that showed overwhelming support for Trump.
There were other highlights of labor support for Harris. Later in the same day as the Teamsters canvassing, Jim Ridderbush, vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1473, spoke at a rally in Green Bay.
“She walked the picket line with striking autoworkers in 2019,” Ridderbush said to cheers. He contrasted that with Trump, arguing the former president didn’t think about working people but instead gave massive tax breaks to companies that shifted new jobs overseas.
“He went even further to attack the ability of unions to organize,” Ridderbush said. “The bottom line is, Trump’s a scab.”
Chants broke out in the crowd: “Trump’s a scab! Trump’s a scab!”
The United Auto Workers union, which has a vast representation in the swing state of Michigan, has also put its weight behind Harris. It recently released its own internal polling data conducted by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, where it says among UAW members without a college degree, Harris now holds a 5-point lead.
“When members hear directly from other members about what’s at stake and which candidate will have their backs, we’re able to break through,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “By engaging our members and highlighting the issues that matter — their paychecks, their families, and their futures — the union makes a real difference.”
Back in Oshkosh, several laborers in Wisconsin cited massive infrastructure buildup under the Biden administration that they say will boost union jobs for at least a decade.
That investment included providing more than $1 billion in funding to replace the John A. Blatnik Bridge between Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin.
Daniel Jones a 37-year Teamster, pointed to that project and to both Biden and Harris walking picket lines as signs that they would back labor.
“That’s going to give building trades unions, as well as the ironworkers, gainful employment for many years. It’s my tax money going to union workers,” Jones said. “Donald Trump had four years to create an infrastructure bill. He would promise it, he’d never get it done.”
Bill Carroll, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 344, pointed to the conservative policy document Project 2025 and Trump’s ties to it as among the warning signs if Trump returns to the White House.
“The labor section of Project 2025 is just a continuation of Scott Walker policies: attack public sector bargaining, national right to work, eliminating prevailing wage laws — right down the line, things that will damage the ability of average working Americans, especially in organized labor,” he said.
Trump has disavowed Project 2025, even though many of his allies were involved in drafting it.
Some workers gave a thumbs-up as they quickly walked by grabbing the flyers. One called out with a smile, “Already did it!” while others shared a similar sentiment.
Some complained about Trump, noting that he and billionaire Tesla mogul Elon Musk held a public conversation in which they laughed about firing striking workers.
There were sporadic critics too. One man, who would not give his name, walked past the group while indicating he was a solid Trump supporter.
“I’m Trump all the way,” he said. When asked about Trump seeming to praise firing striking workers, he paused, “Well, you would hate to see it.”
Jacob Ralph, a 28-year-old from Oshkosh, quietly took the flyers. He said he hadn’t thought much about the election yet but that he was leaning toward Harris.
“She’s a lot safer,” he said. Another union member, Lori Jensen of Neenah, said she did not want to say whom she supported, citing a highly volatile political environment in Wisconsin and deep divisions in her family.
“It’s too explosive for me,” she said.
She noted, however, that she supported her local council, which has backed Harris.
At one point, a worker turned to walk closer to the group once he learned they were advocating for Harris. He antagonized them.
“You didn’t hear about Sean O’Brien? How come Sean O’Brien didn’t endorse her?” he said.
“I can’t speak for Sean,” one of the organizers said and noted that members were free to back whom they pleased.
The man shot back: “You don’t follow your president?”
The organizer responded, “I’ll let Sean speak for himself.”
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