The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) announced Thursday that it will not be endorsing a candidate in this year’s presidential election, becoming the second major union to do so in recent weeks. The IAFF enthusiastically endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 and was one of the first unions to support his candidacy.
The IAFF executive board announced in a statement that members had voted by a margin of 1.2 percentage points not to endorse a candidate in the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Over the past year, the IAFF took unprecedented steps to hear our members’ views on the candidates and the policy issues that matter most to them,” union President Edward Kelly said after the decision was announced.
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“As we have over our 106-year history, the IAFF will continue its work to improve the lives of fire fighters and their families,” Kelly added. “The IAFF Executive Board determined that we are better able to advocate for our members and make progress on the issues that matter to them if we, as a union, are standing shoulder-to-shoulder. This decision, which we took very seriously, is the best way to preserve and strengthen our unity.”
The decision represents a stark deviation from the union’s political leanings ahead of the 2020 election. In that election, the IAFF endorsed Joe Biden in April 2019 as the Democratic Party primary was in its early stages. Biden also spoke at the union’s 2023 legislative conference, where he told union members that he had their back.
The IAFF’s shocking decision comes just weeks after the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the nation’s largest unions, opted not to endorse a candidate.
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Teamsters President Sean O’Brien received a warm welcome at the Republican National Convention earlier this year and publicly announced that he wanted to speak at the DNC as well, though an invitation was never extended. “Under our leadership, we’ve brought every single candidate to the table in front of our rank-and-file members and our general executive board, and we’re waiting on Vice President Harris to commit, to come meet with us,” O’Brien said in a Labor Day interview with CBS News.
On September 18, O’Brien announced that the historically pro-Democrat union would not be endorsing Vice President Harris. “We don’t just represent registered Democrats, we represent registered Republicans and independents, so we have to take [that] into consideration,” O’Brien said after the decision was announced.
Internal polling released by the union presented potentially catastrophic results for the Harris-Walz Campaign among the historically blue demographic. Both online and phone-based internal polling found significant support for former President Trump, who secured support from 58 percent of teamsters members while just 31 percent of respondents expressed support for Harris.
Like the IAFF, the teamsters enthusiastically supported Joe Biden in 2020.
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