Analyzing Union Voting by Workforce Sector in the 2016 Presidential Election

Author

Galen Hlavsa

Date of Award

5-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Dr. Patrick Donnay

Abstract

In the 2016 presidential election, there was evident change in the voting behavior of both blue and white collar workers in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania that assisted in Donald Trump’s win. While there was some realignment in party backing in a handful of unions, there were a number of union members that went against their union recommendation and voted for Trump. I research how union members in private and public sectors voted in the 2012 and 2016 election to compare the rate of union members defecting to Trump across the various sectors of the workforce. In order to do so, I collected data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to analyze two specific sectors, private and public, and evaluate their level of unionization in those states. I then compared this measure with voting data from 2012 and 2016. I expect to see that private unions will have an increase in support for Trump over Romney, and public unions will have somewhat less of an increase towards Trump.

Recommended Citation

Hlavsa, Galen, "Analyzing Union Voting by Workforce Sector in the 2016 Presidential Election" (2018). Political Science Theses and Capstones. 50.
https://pines.bemidjistate.edu/capstone-polisci/50