President Joe Biden speaks at a marketing campaign rally March 9 at Pullman Yards in Atlanta.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

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Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

President Joe Biden speaks at a marketing campaign rally March 9 at Pullman Yards in Atlanta.

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

President Biden’s travels in the present day take him proper up Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien and different high executives of the 1.3 million member union are anticipated to welcome the president. Biden will even take part in what’s described as a roundtable dialogue with rank-and-file Teamsters together with, as a union assertion put it, “UPS drivers, American Red Cross technicians, film and television workers, freight operators, law enforcement, and public employees.”

The Teamsters are one of many largest labor unions within the nation, with members not solely in a various assortment of industries and workplaces, but additionally unfold throughout the nation together with in essential political battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin and others.

Biden — who typically refers to himself as “the most pro-labor President in U.S. history” — already has gained essential 2024 endorsements from the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers union. Additionally, greater than two dozen different nationwide unions have additionally endorsed him, together with the National Education Association, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the Laborers International Union.

The Teamsters might certainly be part of that record, nevertheless it might be some time earlier than they achieve this. The group factors out that in 2020, its endorsement did not come till mid-August, simply 10 weeks earlier than election day.

The Teamsters do provide a probably essential base of help for any candidate. They backed Biden over Trump 4 years in the past, as did an extended record of different unions.

The Biden marketing campaign issued an announcement concerning the president’s relationship with the Teamsters saying, “The president is proud to have strengthened union protections and created millions of union jobs, and he appreciates the opportunity to discuss his historic record with the Teamsters and earn their support.”

Labor skilled Harley Shaiken on the University of California, Berkeley says that though Teamsters have a historical past of endorsing each Democrats and Republicans through the years, by all outward appearances it seems that the union sees President Biden as each a buddy and ally.

Shaiken notes that Teamsters President O’Brien has been, “speaking very positively about President Biden.” But, Shaiken provides that O’Brien can be conscious {that a} sizable minority of his membership likes Trump, so he is “careful to ensure that all Teamsters know he’s made a fair decision and spoken with everyone.”

Prior to Biden’s go to in the present day, Trump held the same session at Teamsters headquarters in Washington in January. It was, by all accounts, a congenial assembly. Other candidates who’ve visited this election cycle embrace Robert Kennedy, Jr., former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., writer Marianne Williamson, Cornel West and Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn. Most of these candidates have since dropped out.

A union endorsement doesn’t robotically ship votes to the chosen candidate. Democrats do have an edge with such voters in line with exit polling, which historically exhibits the celebration successful someplace between 55-60% of the vote from union households in presidential contests. That means the GOP candidates objective is to chop into that margin.

Cutting into that margin is one thing Trump was capable of do in opposition to Hillary Clinton in 2016, however not in opposition to Joe Biden in 2020. Biden maintained the standard Democratic power with the labor vote.

And whereas successful a union endorsement isn’t any assure of votes from union members, it does ship an official sign to the membership which candidate their management feels finest addresses the problems essential to them.

An announcement by the Teamsters says its discussions with Biden will embrace, “things like wages and wealth inequality; corporate bankruptcy reform; antitrust enforcement in the warehouse and package delivery industries; and the freedom to form and join a union more quickly and safely.”

Teamsters President O’Brien says these roundtable conferences with candidates are designed to ship an essential message, “that all our members’ voices are heard and our elected officials do not take for granted the power of the Teamsters vote.”