The Youngstown Election Report: Notes on Unions and White Working-Class Voters

Now that the election is over, pundits of all kinds have begun to pour over the election results in order to determine how Barack Obama won the election. Important here is the question of how and by how much did a black candidate win Ohio and Mahoning County.

In a post-election editorial, Youngstown commentator Bertram DeSouza suggests that local Democrats shouldn’t get too excited about the Obama victory. After all, Obama carried only 19 of Ohio’s 88 counties and failed to get as many votes in Ohio as John Kerry did in 2004. In Mahoning and Trumbull counties, Obama received 61.7% and 59.6% respectively, far below the percentages gained by local Democratic candidates.  As elsewhere, Obama won Ohio by increasing voting totals among blacks, young voters, Hispanics, and college-educated voters throughout the state.

Some have argued that unions were responsible for the Obama victory. The AFL-CIO had a two-prong strategy. First, each union would be largely responsible for getting union households to vote for Obama. Second, the AFL-CIO built a new organization, Working America, that was responsible for turning out nonunion white working-class voters for Obama. Over 200 paid organizers were hired by the AFL-CIO as part of the Working America project to work in Ohio. Together with 175 SEIU organizers in African-American communities and community organizers from ACORN,  MoveOn, and the Public Interest Research Group  in suburban communities, Working America played a central role in organizing nonunion households in Ohio.

Nationally, the AFL-CIO strategy focused on “union heavy swing states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.” Exit polls by AFL-CIO pollster Peter Hart suggest that Obama won among white male AFL-CIO members by 18 points, even as he lost among white male voters overall by 16 points.  Support from white male union members contributed to Obama’s victories in industrial states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Thus unions provided a “firewall” that prevented a McCain victory.

But the Ohio results among union voters were disappointing. CNN exit polls show that in Ohio only 58% of union members and 56% of union household voters went for Obama. This is much lower than in other Midwest battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Missouri, and even lower than the national average which includes many states with meager union density.

Nation or States	Union Households		Union Members
	% of voters	% for Dem	% of voters	% for Dem
National	21%	59%	12%	60%
Michigan	34	67	18	71
Missouri	28	59	14	63
Ohio	28	56	15	58
Pennsylvania	27	62	15	68

SOURCE: CNN Election Center

Further, and more disturbing, in the Youngstown area union members staffing phone banks reported resistance,  especially among UAW and building trade union members, who often mentioned that they would not vote for Obama because of race.  Of course, this information is anecdotal, but it is consistent with traditional white working-class voting patterns. In 2004, only 40%  of whites in Ohio with no college education (working class) voted for John Kerry.

While internal union activities were less effective in Ohio than in comparable states, the AFL-CIO s’ involvement in Working America here was arguably much more successful in influencing voters in nonunion households. In Ohio, 51% of nonunion households voted for Obama — a seven-point increase from the 44% that voted for Kerry in 2004.

So what can we conclude?   My guess is that the older, predominately white, industrial working class continues to be a major influence on voting patterns but is increasingly being offset by a new working class composed of younger, more diverse, and better educated voters.  For example, black voters in Ohio grew by 3% since 2004 and supported Obama by a 95 point margin compared to John Kerry’s 68 point margin. Likewise, while they still vote Democratic, the unionized white industrial working class is declining in both numbers and political clout. Lastly, because Ohio has an older, less educated population with fewer black and Hispanic voters than other states, race continues to influence voting patterns here.  Race may matter less than it did in the past, but the combination of race and class still matters.

John Russo