Obama union support far above average in Michigan (and Pennsylvania, Nevada, Washington)

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Associated Press

By MARTHA RAFFAELE | Associated Press Writer

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Barack Obama won the votes of most union members who cast ballots in last week's election, but union members in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Washington and Michigan were especially supportive of the Democratic president-elect.

Obama received 60 percent of the union vote in 14 states where voters were asked if they were union members, according to an exit poll by The Associated Press. The survey found that Obama was favored by roughly seven in 10 union voters in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Washington and Michigan.

In all four states, union support for Obama was stronger than it was for Democrat John Kerry in 2004. Although union membership has been dwindling nationally, all four have membership rates higher than the national average of 12 percent of wage and salary workers.

Organized labor contributed nearly $312,000 to Obama in the 2008 election cycle, nearly 20 times as much as it gave to Republican nominee John McCain, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.



Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-pa-obama-unionvoters,0,3158644.story

[OhioChick]

1. K&R

For my good friend, Steve! :hi:

[bread_and_roses]

2. K & R for OmahaS and for all the union members who worked all over the

country on this election. There were huge efforts by both AFL-CIO and CTW unions to get issue information to members and to mobilize them. And a special hurrah for members in my home state of PA.

[Lugnut]

4. The UMWA really stepped up.

Every union member was sent a DVD of Cecil Roberts that was very powerful and informative. I have to believe it helped some members to clearly understand what the stakes were in this election.

[Coexist]

3. Oh yes,.

[RubyDuby in GA]

5. I don't doubt it at all

My hubby is a Teamster and leading up to the election, we were getting at least 2 pieces of direct mail from the Teamsters for Obama every day and we got several calls from his local in the 2 weeks before. It was funny because he was making calls too and our house was on one of his call sheets so he called me and asked me to vote for Obama. I politely told him I already had :)