The AFL-CIO — a federation of workers’ unions — is firmly in support of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris as she and her campaign make their final bid for the White House, with the general election about two months away.
Mirroring similar outreach plans from other worker organizations backing Harris, a recent press release from the labor federation described ambitions of a massive outreach campaign backing Harris’ bid for the White House.
“In the final 10 weeks of the 2024 cycle, the AFL-CIO is conducting its largest-ever voter mobilization in support of Harris and Walz. The program includes hundreds of thousands of volunteer shifts to contact millions of battleground state voters and engage workers on the job sites,” the group said.
Harris and her campaign have already returned the favor, vocally aligning themselves with union workers with a record contrasting with the path of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his campaign. Recently, Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) showed up at a fire fighters’ union event and was booed, repeatedly, including as he tried to get his speech going at all. A rapid response team on the Harris campaign posted a clip of some of the jeers — again — after Vance posted something to mark Labor Day on Monday.
On Monday, Harris herself was campaigning in Detroit, Michigan, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, while her own running mate, Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz, campaigned in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is the same city where Republicans held their national convention in July formalizing Trump’s already anticipated nomination. The schedule on Trump’s website appeared to indicate as of early Tuesday that he himself wouldn’t be out on the campaign trail again until Saturday.
At the Detroit event, Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer made a case against Trump.
“This guy just doesn’t get you or your life at all,” the governor said. “I don’t think he could tell us what the difference is between a flat head and a Phillips head screwdriver, you know what I’m saying? You think he’s ever swung a hammer or used a power tool in his life? Oh hell no. You think he’s ever scanned a coupon at the store to save money as he’s checking out? You think he ever sat down with a number of family bills knowing he could only afford to pay some of ’em?”
