President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Sean O’Brien speaks on stage on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 15, 2024. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined to endorse a candidate for president Wednesday, although both parties sought the support of the nation’s largest union.

The group’s General Executive Board voted Wednesday to abstain from an endorsement, citing a split among members and a lack of firm commitments from either major party candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, on labor issues.

In Wisconsin, however, the Teamsters’ statewide organization broke with the parent union and unanimously endorsed Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Teamsters Joint Council 39 represents 15,000 Teamsters in Wisconsin in three locals.

In endorsing Harris they joined with Teamsters groups in Michigan, Nevada and Philadelphia as well as local unions across the country with more than half a million members, according to the Harris-Walz campaign.

“As Vice President of the most pro-union administration ever, Kamala Harris worked with the Teamsters and other union workers to pass the historic Butch Lewis Act which has saved the pensions of over a million retirees to date,” the Wisconsin council stated in a press release Wednesday afternoon. Wisconsin Teamsters retirees were among those active in the campaign to salvage the pension fund.

The national union’s refusal to endorse can be viewed as a loss for Harris, the Democrat. The union has endorsed the Democrat in every presidential election since 2000, including Trump’s opponents, Joe Biden in 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Each campaign sought the endorsement of the 1.3-million-member union, hoping it would buoy their candidate in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — the closely contested industrial states considered crucial to an Electoral College victory in November.

And the union’s leaders held in-person meetings with each candidate, seeking to extract policy commitments. But those commitments were not forthcoming, according to a statement from the union explaining the decision not to endorse.

“Unfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business,”  Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in the statement.

“We sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries — and to honor our members’ right to strike — but were unable to secure those pledges.”

The Wisconsin council’s announcement contrasted sharply with O’Brien’s statement. Bill Carroll, council president, expressed confidence that Harris would work with Congress to pass the PRO Act, legislation removing barriers to union organizing, “ending  some of the most egregious union busting tactics once and for all,” Carroll said in a statement.

Carroll lashed out at Trump’s first-term record as hostile to labor and proposals in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation agenda whose authors have included numerous Trump advisors, which he said would attack union organizing further. He tied the Wisconsin Teamsters to union supporters who have signed on to organize and campaign for Harris and Walz this fall.

O’Brien, meanwhile, encouraged the union’s politically diverse membership to remain active during the election season.

“Democrats, Republicans, and Independents proudly call our union home, and we have a duty to represent and respect every one of them,” O’Brien added. “We strongly encourage all our members to vote in the upcoming election, and to remain engaged in the political process. But this year, no candidate for President has earned the endorsement of the Teamsters’ International Union.”

However, by Wednesday night, locals in the battleground states Nevada and Michigan, in addition to Wisconsin, announced they would back Harris, along with other locals that had earlier issued endorsements. “Along with these locals, the Vice President has received the overwhelming support of organized labor because, while she has spent her entire career championing labor, Donald Trump celebrated firing striking workers and his Project 2025 agenda would fundamentally undermine the right to organize,” the campaign said in a statement.

Teamsters Joint Council 32 representing members in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin also endorsed Harris.

Trump preferred in member poll

In an electronic poll the union released Wednesday, rank-and-file Teamsters preferred Trump, the Republican, over Harris 59.6% to 34%.

In a statement, the Trump campaign touted the poll results.

“While the Executive Board of the Teamsters is making no formal endorsement, the vast majority of rank-and-file working men and women in this important organization want President Donald Trump back in the White House,” the unsigned statement read.

The electronic poll’s results were a reversal from a previous straw poll that showed members supported President Joe Biden to Trump 44.3% to 36.3%. Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris in July.

The mere question of whom Teamsters would endorse marks a significant shift toward Republicans. Unions, including Teamsters, have historically backed Democrats.

Trump’s populist appeal appears to have upset that tradition.

O’Brien had a prime-time speaking role at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this summer, though he did not endorse Trump. It was the first appearance by a Teamsters president at a Republican National Convention in the group’s 121-year history.

Harris’ running mate Walz was a teachers union member before entering politics.

This report has been updated with the endorsement of the Harris-Walz campaign by local and state Teamster organizations, including in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Examiner’s Erik Gunn contributed to this report.