Who’s Boosting Hillary?
Is teacher union political spending and activity making a difference in the presidential primaries? Mike Antonucci has some interesting insights in Intercepts. It is important to keep in mind that teachers who are forced to pay dues are also forced to support the candidate of the teacher union officials’ choice, not the teachers themselves.
There’s no question that Clinton’s margin of victory so far among union households exceeds that of other constituencies. Since the full financial commitment of every NEA and AFT member is behind her, it would be foolish to expect any other outcome. Clinton won union households by nine points in Iowa and by 11 points in Nevada, according to entrance/exit polling.
But there are two problems with getting too excited about this. The first is the big difference in voting within union households. We rarely get data about this, but in the 2012 Wisconsin recall election of Gov. Scott Walker, the Washington Post found that 71 percent of union members voted for the challenger, Tom Barrett, but only 51 percent of their households did. A Harris poll in 2011 discovered a host of “anti-union” views within union households..