By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer

 WASHINGTON (PAI)--Overwhelming support from unionists and their families became the “firewall” of votes that provided victory for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama in key swing states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Minnesota, top AFL-CIO officials and their polling analyst said.

And the labor federation fully intends to take advantage of that key role to push its top cause next year, the Employee Free Choice Act, federation President John J. Sweeney said.

Speaking at a post-election press conference Nov. 5, after Obama soundly beat Republican John McCain in electoral votes and won a 52%-47% margin in the popular vote, Sweeney political director Karen Ackerman, pollster Guy Molyneux and federation Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka all presented evidence of labor’s massive get-out-the-vote effort in the presidential contest, and its impact there and in lower-level races.

The total campaign cost for the federation and its member unions topped $250 million.

As a result, not only did Obama defeat McCain, but pro-worker candidates won in key Senate races, while several notably anti-worker House Republicans lost their seats, too.  “In state after state, we defeated lousy candidates,” Sweeney added.

“America’s working families and our unions were a steady force powering the engine of change throughout this campaign, knocking on door after door, talking person to person,” Sweeney said.  “This year we expanded our battlefield, reaching out to more than 13 million voters in 24 states.”  

Unionists distributed 76 million literature pieces, knocked on 10 million doors and distributed 27 million worksite fliers.  Particularly crucial was face-to-face contact, Ackerman said.  That intensified starting in August, after the federation identified 3 million undecided voters--and went to them with its economic pitch.   

AFSCME and the Communications Workers alone each sent more than 40,000 volunteers into the field, and the Steel Workers mobilized tens of thousands more.

The AFL-CIO effort concentrated on 13 swing states, notably the key state of Ohio.   Only one presidential winner in at least the last half-century or more--John F. Kennedy in 1960--has failed to carry it.  Obama won Ohio 52%-47%.

Ackerman explained that not only did the federation and its member unions commit thousands of workers, out of more than 250,000 volunteers overall, to Ohio, but  that Working America, the AFL-CIO affiliate for those who can’t join unions, had tens thousands of volunteers and 800,000 members.   That’s one third of the group’s nationwide total.

Between the union turnout and Working America, unionists and their households comprised 30% of the Ohio electorate, she said.  Neither Ackerman nor Molyneux could estimate the union and union-allied share of the total U.S. electorate on Tuesday, though some exit polls put it at 21%, above unions’ 12% share of the workforce.

After the federation’s endorsement of Obama, before the Democratic convention, “We began an intensive campaign to re-introduce him to union voters, in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, emphasizing his pro-working-family background,” Ackerman explained.  “We always said we were the firewall that would prevent a McCain victory.”

The effort, which began in July, succeeded.  Unionists averaged “25-35 contacts” per voter in the swing states.  By the time they ended, Obama’s lead over McCain in Ohio had grown by 16 percentage points, to 61%-32%.  There was a 22-point increase, to 63%-27% in Pennsylvania, and a 26-point change in Michigan, to 68%-23%.

Molyneux presented graphics from his organization’s poll of 1.487 union voters nationwide, including 855 in battleground states such as Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan Pennsylvania and Ohio.  The overall picture showed a 67%-30% edge for Obama among all union voters, with 3% going to other candidates.  

And among white women, Obama trailed by seven percentage points nationwide --though he won the overall women’s vote--but beat McCain among unionized white women by 47%.

Exit polls show Obama won majorities in both sexes, though there was, as usual, a pro-Democratic gender gap, where women favored Obama more than men did.  But the margins that tilted both sexes to Obama came from minority groups: 96%-4% among blacks and 67%-31% among Hispanics.

In the battlegrounds, the Obama-McCain score was 69%-28%.  Molyneux also took a separate poll of Working America voters in four battleground states--Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon and Pennsylvania--and they backed Obama 67%-30%.  The margins of error were 3.5% in the larger poll and 4% in the battlegrounds.

Those figures included huge margins among unionized white men, thought to be a key vulnerability for Obama.  By contrast, all non-union members went for Obama by a 51-47% margin “though that will probably drop” as further data from absentee ballots are counted, Molyneux said.

The Working America figures were especially important, he added, because that group is more white and more conservative than unionists as a whole.  One-third of Working America members own guns and one-fourth are members of the National Rifle Association.  Yet majorities of those groups in battlegrounds went for Obama.

The big issue--no surprise--was the economy and jobs.  Molyneux said 60% of respondents named it as their top issue.  The war in Iraq (28%) and health care (26%), trailed.  Four years ago, when anti-worker GOP President George W. Bush narrowly beat labor-backed Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), the economy (42%) barely edged the war (40%) as the top issue.  The AFL-CIO, in 2005, for its first time ever, broke with an administration on a war.

Molyneux noted that race was a factor, for one of every eight union voters (13%) polled--but not in the way that had been forecast, since Obama is the first African-American major-party nominee.  Only 4% of union voters, at the end, called race their “single most important factor,” and another 9% called it one of their key factors.  Of the whites in that group, three-fourths (73%-24%) voted for Obama.

“It was impressive that it was that low,” Molyneux said.  “By the end, among all voters caring about it, they voted for Obama 76%-21%.”  Change To Win, the nation’s other labor federation, released its poll results Nov. 6.
 
“Led by a candidate of uncommon ability to inspire hope, we reclaimed our country from those who are serving corporate interests and the privileged at the expense of everyone else,” Sweeney said.  

“Today is one of the brightest days in my lifetime of fighting for working men and women….and I can safely say that today is one of the brightest days for working people across our nation,” added the 74-year-old Sweeney.

And alluding to the facts that the White House is just over a block away from AFL-CIO headquarters and that he was inside only once in the eight-year reign of anti-Bush--for a dinner honoring the Pope--Sweeney said: “We’re delighted we’ll have a new neighbor across the park.”