philadelphia<u+2014>u.s. labor<u+00a0>unions are plowing money into the 2016 elections at an unprecedented rate, largely in an effort to help elect hillary clinton and give democrats a majority in the senate. according to the most recent campaign-finance filings, unions spent about $108 million on the elections from january 2015 through the end of august, a 38% jump from $78 million during the same period leading up to the 2012 election, and nearly double their<u+00a0>2008 total in the same period. nearly 85% of their spending this year has supported democrats. almost every large union is spending more than has been seen in modern elections, financing rallies, canvassing efforts and ad campaigns to bolster democrats. the afl-cio has spent $11.4 million funding outside political groups such as super pacs thus far, up from $5 million at this point in the 2012 election, according to the nonpartisan center for responsive politics. the national education association has spent $14 million, up from $7.7 million. unions have put few dollars behind mr. trump<u+2019>s campaign, but two unions, one representing u.s. border patrol agents and another representing police officers, have endorsed him in recent months. in a statement announcing the endorsement last month, chuck canterbury, the national president of the fraternal order of the police, praised mr. trump<u+2019>s <u+201c>real commitment to law enforcement<u+201d> and said he <u+201c>understands and supports our priorities.<u+201d> the unions<u+2019> efforts to support mrs. clinton are particularly crucial as polling shows white working-class voters <u+2014>who often belong to<u+00a0>labor<u+00a0>unions<u+2014>are being drawn to republican donald trump <u+2019>s campaign message. mr. trump has a 19-percentage-point advantage among white voters without a college degree, according to a wall street journal/nbc news poll taken from oct. 10-13. such voters make up a big section of the vote in important electoral states, including pennsylvania and ohio. in the prior presidential election, a majority of white working class men who belonged to a<u+00a0>labor<u+00a0>union voted for president barack obama, while those not in a union voted for republican mitt romney, according to the afl-cio. mr. trump <u+201c>has successfully tapped into the anger and frustration out there among<u+00a0>our members,<u+201d> said richard trumka, the president of the afl-cio. <u+201c>but once we give them the facts, his house of cards starts to tumble down pretty quickly.<u+201d> the trump campaign didn<u+2019>t respond to a request for comment. the unions<u+2019> election activity is accelerating in the final weeks of the campaign. on saturday, the presidents of three unions<u+2014>american federation of state, county and municipal employees, the nea and the american federation of teachers<u+2014>held a rally in a vacant lot in west philadelphia for mrs. clinton and senate candidate katie mcginty, a democrat, before dispatching hundreds of volunteers to go door-to-door in the city<u+2019>s battleground neighborhoods and urge people to vote for democrats. afscme president lee saunders said at the rally that union members would be <u+201c>looking people dead ass in the eye and telling them about the importance of this election.<u+201d> at a rally in parma, ohio, last week, union leaders and elected officials sought to bolster support for mrs. clinton among members of the state<u+2019>s building-trades<u+00a0>labor unions, who are roughly split between democrats and republicans. the speakers praised mrs. clinton<u+2019>s plan to invest in infrastructure and her pledge to raise the minimum wage, and railed against mr. trump in blunt terms. they pointed to what they said was mr. trump<u+2019>s pattern of not paying business owners what they said he owed them and criticized his selection of indiana gov. mike pence, a supporter of so-called right-to-work legislation, as his running mate. <u+201c>he knows what we want to hear, and so he<u+2019>s peddling it to us,<u+201d> said rep. tim ryan (d., ohio). of mr. trump<u+2019>s treatment of<u+00a0>labor-union members, he said: <u+201c>he screwed their eyes out!<u+201d> mr. trump has said decisions he made as a businessman to maximize profit don<u+2019>t reflect the way he<u+2019>d make choices if he is elected president. augie orozco, a member of the international union of painters and allied trades, said he found<u+00a0>the rally, hosted by the union super pac hard hats for hillary, useful because it provided him with talking points to persuade his trump-leaning co-workers to support mrs. clinton. <u+201c>a couple of guys i work with that are going for trump<u+2014>i<u+2019>d like to talk to them and let them know which way we should go,<u+201d> mr. orozco said as he left the rally. <u+201c>he<u+2019>s not too good when it comes to businesspeople.<u+2026>he doesn<u+2019>t pay.<u+201d> he said his co-workers<u+2019> support for mr. trump stemmed from a concern that mrs. clinton was more of the <u+201c>same old.<u+201d> as mr. orozco and other union members gathered<u+00a0>last week, a super pac led by the afl-cio, other unions and environmentalist tom steyer dispatched 150 canvassers to talk to voters on mrs. clinton<u+2019>s behalf. the group, called for our future, said it has raised $60 million this election and has knocked on more than one million doors in ohio alone. the group also has offices in six other states. unions also have been among the biggest supporters of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s allied super pac, contributing $11 million to the group through august, according to federal election commission records. that includes $4 million from the laborers<u+2019> international union of north america and its affiliated pac, and $2 million each from the united brotherhood of carpenters and joiners and the primary union for plumbers and pipe fitters. labor<u+00a0>leaders say they have found mrs. clinton more difficult to sell than her predecessor. mike knisley, who runs the local plumbers and pipe fitters union in lima, ohio, said he had more success persuading union members to vote for mr. obama in the 2012 election than mrs. clinton this year. <u+201c>i never thought i<u+2019>d have a harder time selling a white woman candidate than a black candidate, but there you have it,<u+201d> mr. knisley said. the unprecedented amount of election activity by unions reflects the massive stakes for organized<u+00a0>labor<u+00a0>this year. union membership across the nation has been declining for years, while<u+00a0>republicans in congress have launched a series of attacks that would further diminish them. many of those efforts have been blocked by mr. obama and the democratic majority at the national<u+00a0>labor<u+00a0>relations board, which referees workplace disputes and oversees union elections. labor<u+00a0>unions are also mindful of the vacancy on the u.s. supreme court. earlier this year, the court appeared poised to issue a decision that would have allowed members of public-sector unions to opt out of paying compulsory dues in certain states. they escaped such a ruling when conservative justice antonin scalia died, leaving the court deadlocked 4-4 on the matter. in july, mrs. clinton spoke at the afscme<u+2019>s convention in las vegas, where she warned union members about appointing another conservative to the supreme court. <u+201c>we haven<u+2019>t seen the last of efforts to use the courts to undermine your rights,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>when i am president, working people will always have a seat at the table.<u+201d> write to brody mullins at brody.mullins@wsj.com and rebecca ballhaus at rebecca.ballhaus@wsj.com corrections & amplifications: the laborers<u+2019> international union of north america and its affiliated pac contributed $4 million to hillary clinton<u+2019>s allied super pac through august. an earlier version of this article didn<u+2019>t include the contribution from the union<u+2019>s affiliated pac. (oct. 19, 2016)
labor unions step up presidential-election spending - wsj
brody mullins rebecca ballhaus michelle hackman