Before I left the Michigan Democratic Party State Endorsement Convention on April 19, I saw three young men, probably apprentices, from the plumbers and pipefitters union. They looked as out of place among the bespectacled old lefties and young radicals in keffiyehs as famed AFL-CIO President George Meany would have been. One wore American flag boots, a sartorial signal that marked him as an outsider. It was as if three young Meanys, the ghosts of Democratic Party past, appeared for a moment to remind the delegates of a fleeting liberal legacy. The reminder went unheeded.
The Michigan Democratic Party convention marked a significant power shift, finalizing a trend that began in 2018 with Dana Nessel’s nomination for attorney general. The growing power of the far Left has supplanted the influence of traditional labor.
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Nessel’s 2018 upset of the United Auto Workers-backed candidate was then seen as a serious blow, though Nessel was endorsed by the Michigan Education Association (MEA), the state’s largest teachers’ union. Bill Ballenger, a veteran political pundit in Michigan, described the dynamic that had long prevailed: “The labor slate always wins, and that’s the UAW.” He called labor’s loss in 2018 “historic.”
If the 2018 result represented a historic erosion of labor’s power, this year’s nominations signal that Michigan Democrats have entered a new epoch. Karen McDonald, the attorney general candidate holding every major union endorsement, including UAW and MEA, lost. Her opponent, Eli Savit, secured only one labor endorsement, from a building trades council in his home county. He won.
The University of Michigan regent nomination race proved equally pivotal. Amir Makled, who lost his only major union endorsement over pro-Hezbollah and anti-Semitic tweets, defeated Jewish incumbent Jordan Acker, who enjoyed the support of MEA, AFL-CIO Michigan, AFT Michigan, AFSCME Michigan, IBEW Michigan, Northwest Midwest Council of Carpenters, and Teamsters Joint Council 23. Makled, meantime, retained the endorsement of the Graduate Employees’ Organization at the University of Michigan, an American Federation of Teachers Michigan affiliate and a key constituent group of the campus intifada. The UAW did not endorse, though former UAW President Bob King, a close ally of many higher education unions at the University of Michigan, supported Makled.
Secretary of State nominee Garlin Gilchrist is a progressive whose stance on the Israel–Gaza conflict aligns with left-wing orthodoxy. He managed to win the backing of the AFL-CIO and UAW, but several unions endorsed his more experienced opponent, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum. One common endorsement that Savit, Makled, and Gilchrist all carried was that of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
The far Left brought organization, not just endorsements. Entering the convention venue, I was greeted by an activist in a keffiyeh wearing a big green People’s Coalition button, a stark replacement for the traditional UAW or MEA shirt. Other People’s Coalition activists were stationed along the way to shepherd convention goers. The People’s Coalition, which backs Islamo-socialist candidates statewide, was founded by two activists from the Uncommitted Movement, a pro-Palestinian protest campaign that urged Democratic voters to withhold support from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2024. The People’s Coalition also endorsed Savit, Makled, and Gilchrist.
In a crowd of over 7,000 delegates, labor looked small and concentrated, occupying a wing just off the main convention hall through much of the proceedings. The UAW claimed that its delegation made up more than 10 percent of the assembled group at the convention—more than 700 people—but even by the union’s own numbers, this constitutes an admission of shrinking influence. Its members lacked the presence of mind or cohesion to counter the booing directed at Acker and Representative Haley Stevens.
This hard-left shift is forcing traditional Michigan unions to choose between their historic affinity for the Democratic Party or a new, more moderate option. Many traditional unions, including 24 locals, along with several prominent pro-union Democrats and one former Michigan AFL-CIO president, have already defected to former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s independent gubernatorial campaign. The emerging split is reminiscent of 1972, when Meany’s AFL-CIO, put off by Democratic candidate George McGovern’s progressivism, declared its neutrality in the presidential race. More than a half century later, with Democratic candidates growing ever more extreme, organized labor faces a similar dilemma.