Labor has a fresh focus on state legislative races this midterm election year -- and a new emphasis on reaching non-union households, AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka told reporters Tuesday.
Union spending this election cycle is likely to be in the range it was for the last midterm election in 2010: about $250 to 300 million, by some estimates. Trumka said that this year's midterm fight is more local than it has been in the past in part because of gridlock in Washington. In battleground states, labor has focused its efforts on legislative candidates in tight races.
"We are playing in state legislative races at a level we haven't before," he said at a morning roundtable at AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington. "Partly that's because we can get things done -- like increases in the minimum wage -- there that we can't at the federal level."
The AFL-CIO has also stepped up efforts to reach non-union households through a super PAC, Workers' Voice, and the PAC's state-level affiliates. The new organization emerged after the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizen's United decision, which permitted independent political spending by corporations and unions. Before that decision, unions were limited to communicating political messages only to their own members. Now, they are able to communicate with any household -- and in key races, that's what they're doing.
"Our people are getting excited, and its picking up steam," said Trumka Tuesday, offering carefully hedged predictions on the mid-term elections -- and acknowledging that "it took an effort" to get union members and allies motivated this year.
He waved away suggestions that President Obama's low popularity was harming Democrats, repeatedly pointing to the experience of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. "McConnell wanted to run his reelection race by running against Obama, but it isn't working," he said.
Trumka acknowledged seeing conservative messages in battleground races but said the ground game belonged to labor in the states he has visited recently, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois.
"We see conservative efforts in these states on television, with ads," he said. "But I haven't seen much of a ground game. They'll try it, but they are not in it for the long haul. They will fold up the tent after the election."
And he recommended that politicians consider a populist appeal to voters, including tea party Republicans. "There is some convergence," he said. "The tea party people don't like these trade deals -- they think wages should be going up."