Labor unions bet big on winners, losers in recent primaries

Source: NY1

Last week’s primaries saw more than a half-dozen Democratic incumbents unseated.

It was a mixed-night for organized labor, which endorsed some insurgent candidates but also was on the losing side of some major races.

When candidates want to show they’ve got so-called street cred, they’ll point to the company they keep: political parties, powerful elected officials and labor unions.  

So, how important is organized labor in this election year?

“Union [endorsements] usually [help]. However, where union really matters is if they go all in and they spend a lot of their political capital race. HTC, for example, spent a lot of time on Grace Lee and Jessica González-Rojas’ win,” Trip Yang, a political consultant, who was also involved in those political campaigns, said.

Before González-Rojas won against Senate Labor Committee Chair Jessica Ramos, nearly 2,000 members from the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council spread out across Queens’ state Senate District 13, door-knocking on her behalf.

That union, which was angry at Ramos’ opposition to a casino project, also spent six figures promoting her through an independent expenditure.

“Some smart unions do member-to-member outreach,” Ryan Adams, managing director at Actum, said.

“Sometimes that matters a ton, you know, and that can be geo-fenced and targeted to people in the district,” he added.

Progressive United Auto Workers picked winners like Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Brad Lander.

“They’re the only union to win three for three. They’re the most progressive union. They are, you know, they had a big night alongside Mayor [Zohran] Mamdani and the [Democratic Socialists of America],” said Yang.

But what if endorsements don’t translate into enough votes?

“If a union simply endorses and gives a candidate [its] logo and endorsed press release, that’s not really saying much,” Yang explained.

Despite capturing the powerful HTC, the United Federation of Teachers and healthcare union, 1199SEIU, six-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat lost to Avila Chevalier. 

Rep. Dan Goldman showed off his repertoire with the largest municipal employee union, District Council 37, before suffering a 30-point loss to Lander.

Big unions and the left-leaning Working Families Party also bet big on Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

“If Antonio Reynoso won, he was going to DC. But if he lost, he’s staying as the Brooklyn borough president,” Adams said.

“Julie Menin is, like, really close with a lot of these unions, and is an incredible power broker. And so sometimes they’re backing people to make sure that everyone, not just the direct person that they’re backing, but the other people that are related to it, are backing,” he continued.

The Working Families Party is still riding on last year’s success with then-Democratic mayoral nominee Mamdani.

“They actually spearheaded the anti-Cuomo coalition, so you know, much of the downfall of [Andrew] Cuomo last year was due to the WFP. They laid the groundwork for that. 2026, not quite as successful as 2025, but not a bad year for WFP,” Yang told NY1.

But now the calculus is different: the party needs to stay alive. Meaning, during November’s gubernatorial election they need at least 130,000 votes — or more than 2% of the total ballot count — on the WFP line.

"On Tuesday, voters across New York State sent a very clear message — New Yorkers are demanding bold change and candidates who are prepared to fight for it are winning," WFP state director Jasmine Gripper told NY1, touting the third party's support of mayors elected across New York week. 

"This year, we added to those victories by electing WFP candidates to Congress, State Senate and Assembly, taking out incumbents from Buffalo to Brooklyn. In the weeks ahead, we’ll turn this momentum towards November: continuing to build our WFP bloc by flipping critical state and congressional seats like NY-17 from red to blue, and working to earn hundreds of thousands of votes on the Working Families Party ballot line," she added. 

“I would be shocked if WFP doesn’t endorse [Kathy] Hochul, because the ballot line is a leverage tool,” Adams said. “If you’re a political party or a union, you want to be taking victory laps,” he said.