Key facts about union members and the 2024 election

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Long seen as a core constituency of the Democratic Party, voters who belong to labor unions are increasingly being courted by both political parties. In this year’s presidential election, the campaigns of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have made high-profile efforts to win the support of union members. And union workers are a crucial voting bloc in several battleground states that will likely determine who wins the White House.

Here are five facts about unions and union members, drawn from recent Pew Research Center surveys and federal data.

1.The majority of union members align with the Democratic Party. About six-in-ten voters who belong to a union (59%) identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, while about four-in-ten (39%) associate with the GOP, according to 2023 Center survey data.

2.The share of U.S. workers who belong to a union has fallen over the past four decades. In 1983, 20.1% of American workers were represented by a union. By 2023, 10.0% of U.S. workers were in a union, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

3.Majorities of Americans say declining union membership is bad for the country (54%) and for working people (59%), according to a January 2024 Center survey.

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to view the decline in union membership as bad.

*69% of Democrats say the decline has been bad for the country, and 74% say it has been bad for working people.

*40% of Republicans say the decline has been bad for the country, and 43% say it has been bad for workers.

4.Like voters overall, voters who belong to unions are more likely to say Harris’ policies would be better for union members than Trump’s. While 38% of voters overall say Harris’ policies would make things better for union members, 28% say this about Trump’s policies, according to a September 2024 Center survey.

5.A majority of Americans (55%) say labor unions have a positive effect on the country, while about four-in-ten (41%) say they have a negative impact, according to the Center’s January survey.