Challenging the Republican ascendance in states where labor once carried enormous sway, a prominent union plans to spend tens of millions of dollars during the 2018 campaign cycle to reverse the trend.
The Service Employees International Union, one of the largest and wealthiest unions in the United States with roughly 2 million members, will fund an extensive campaign over the next 14 months to elect politicians with labor-friendly stands on the minimum wage, unions and health care.
The effort will primarily aim at the traditionally industrial states of the Midwest and Rust Belt, where labors political influence has come under a furious assault from conservative forces in recent decades, culminating in President Trumps electoral sweep of the traditionally Democratic states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Since 2010, four states in the region have enacted so-called right-to-work legislation that allows workers to opt out of paying fees to unions that bargain on their behalf. Elected leaders in several states have acted to block or reverse minimum-wage increases.
If you think about what the No. 1 job of an elected official ought to be, its raising the standard of living of citizens theyre elected to represent, said Scott Courtney, an executive vice president of the union, which will formally unveil the initiative on Labor Day. But if you look at what has been happening in battle ground states in the Midwest, its just the opposite.
The high-profile involvement of S.E.I.U., whose membership in the Midwest has steadily increased over much of the past generation, is in some sense a reflection of the changing economic landscape of the region, where health care has replaced manufacturing as the top employer in many states.
But in another way, the effort is a matter of survival: with industrial unions depleted by globalization and automation, the stronger position of public- and service-sector unions has made them bigger targets for the right. Several Republican governors elected since 2010 embraced legislation that would restrict what public-sector unions can bargain for or would rein in their members pensions.
Recent polling suggests a climate in which Democratic candidates may regain momentum. A recent NBC News/Marist poll showed Mr. Trump with a net negative approval rating of roughly 20 percentage points in the three typically Democratic states he carried. The Republican governors of Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin also appear to be unpopular, though term limits prevent the Michigan governor from running again.
Some public opinion experts believe that Republicans have overreached on the narrower issue of unions in particular.
In Midwestern states, the battlegrounds, people really like unions, said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who has done work for unions, including the service employees. That doesnt mean theyre uncritical, but they like them, they cannot imagine a world without unions.
