Labor Unions endorsing *Ohio Republicans*: Realignment or just realism?

Some breaking news out of Ohio, today: Semafor’s Shelby Talcott, a Buckeye native herself, is reporting that the Teamsters have decided to endorse Vivek Ramaswamy for Governor.

The Ohio conference within the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is endorsing Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy — an influential pickup for the former 2024 contender in the race.

The endorsement from the Ohio Conference of Teamsters, which represents more than 50,000 workers in the state and is part of the broader International Brotherhood of Teamsters organization, is especially noteworthy because the group is the third labor group to endorse Ramaswamy after previously backing former Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan for Senate. Ryan is considering jumping into the governor’s race, too.

“Our members want a leader who will fight for good-paying jobs and strengthen the future for Ohio’s working families,” Ohio conference president Patrick J. Darrow said in a release. “Vivek has demonstrated a commitment to listening to labor and partnering with us to deliver real results, and we look forward to working with him.”

[…]

According to internal union polling, 60% of Teamsters preferred President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Ramaswamy in the race for governor, over then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

NBC News previously reported on labor endorsements for Ramaswamy and now-Sen. Jon Husted:

Vivek Ramaswamy, a billionaire closely aligned with President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, already has three labor groups backing him for governor in 2026, with the most recent nod coming this week from the Central Midwest Carpenters Union. And Sen. Jon Husted, the Republican appointed to fill Vice President JD Vance’s old Senate seat, has two supporting him in next year’s special election to fill the remainder of Vance’s term.

[…]

The endorsements on their own aren’t a total shock, coming from groups that occasionally back GOP candidates in a state where unions have been spreading their political donations more evenly between the two parties.

[…]

But the timing of Ramaswamy and Husted’s labor endorsements, nine months before the May 2026 primaries, has raised eyebrows. The Democratic field for governor is unsettled, with former Rep. Tim Ryan, a labor-friendly candidate who lost the Senate race to Vance in 2022, expected to decide whether to run soon.

Meanwhile, Husted’s endorsement last month from the Northwest Ohio Building & Construction Trades Council came days after former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who has made his support for labor central to his political identity, launched a campaign for Husted’s seat.

This will undoubtedly prompt fans of Patrick Ruffini’s theory of a massive political realignment being underway to say “see, we told you.”

Maybe. The Democratic Party certainly does seem to be becoming more and more the party of wealthier, better-educated Americans, with working classes taking an ever-closer look at the GOP.

But this might also just be… realism talking. While Cook Political rates the Ohio Senate race as merely “Lean R” (away from “Likely R”), the governor’s race currently looks pretty sewn up. Ramaswamy has cleared the Republican field. And while Tim Ryan may be suggesting he could still enter the race, the fact is, he hasn’t done it yet. He also couldn’t reach the 47 percent mark against Ryan in 2022 (though he did score a better percentage of the vote than Joe Biden did in 2020). And if you look at raw vote totals for Biden and Harris, it sure looks like there were plenty of potential Democratic votes that Ryan just couldn’t find and turn out.

Why would unions spend time on the sidelines, instead of backing the guy who looks likely to win and is already in the game, given all that?

Husted’s race seems like a different matter, though. Sherrod Brown is known and loved by union folks in Ohio– and that seems likely to remain largely the case despite Trump having put a big dent in Democrats’ popularity with them, overall. And Brown can make that into a real race, though it is yet to be determined whether he actually will do so.

The 2026 election result will tell us a lot about whether the realignment is as real as it looks right now, or whether it will have been a temporary blip and aberration that resulted from Democratic screwups and Trump getting lucky (and he truly does seem to have a magic horseshoe, or rabbit foot, or something embedded somewhere in his body). But right now, the economy looks like it might be souring, and the party that doesn’t control the White House usually over performs in midterm elections.

So this could all be endorsements for nothing. Or it could be the ultimate pragmatic move.

TBD