Teamsters president backs Republicans in 2026 despite members backing Democrats

Local Teamsters unions diverge from national leadership’s Republican endorsements

The 1.3 million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters is backing Republican candidates in the 2026 midterm cycle even as local affiliates have endorsed their Democratic rivals, extending an internal split that opened when President Sean O’Brien became the first sitting Teamsters president to address a Republican National Convention in 2024. The Guardian reported the conflicting endorsements and donations Wednesday.

In Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District, the Pennsylvania Conference of Teamsters in April endorsed Democrat Paige Cognetti, the mayor of Scranton, citing her record of fiscal management. “As mayor, Paige has taken on special interests and fought for reform. She turned down a [city-issued] car, eliminated cash payments and cut costs, leading to budget surpluses and a credit rating that went from junk to investment grade,” Bill Hamilton, president of the state conference, said at the annual meeting where the endorsement was announced.

Two months later, the Teamsters’ national political action committee endorsed Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan in the same race, following a $5,000 donation from the PAC to his campaign in May, according to The Guardian. After the PAC’s move, Hamilton released a separate statement backing Bresnahan, citing the congressman’s role in passing the Faster Labor Contracts Act in the House. “Rep. Bresnahan has always had our backs, particularly when he played a critical role in the successful bipartisan push to pass the Faster Labor Contracts Act in the House of Representatives,” Hamilton said in a June statement that did not address his earlier endorsement of Cognetti. “The Teamsters support candidates who support us regardless of their party affiliation, and for that reason Robert Bresnahan has our unwavering endorsement.” Hamilton did not respond to multiple requests for comment. O’Brien visited the district in August and added his own endorsement of Bresnahan.

In New Hampshire, O’Brien donated $1,000 on Feb. 19 to the Republican Senate campaign of Scott Brown, who appeared on O’Brien’s “Better Bad Ideas” podcast six days after the donation. The state’s only Teamsters local, Local 633, had endorsed Brown’s Democratic opponent, Rep. Chris Pappas, in April 2025. Local 633 did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In Michigan, O’Brien endorsed Chris Swanson for governor in June, but Swanson lost the Democratic primary to Jocelyn Benson. Six of the state’s Teamsters locals — 283, 406, 243, 1038, 247 and 337 — had endorsed Benson in the primary, a majority of the union’s locals in the state, according to The Guardian.

In Ohio, the Teamsters have endorsed Rep. Max Miller, a Republican facing resignation calls from members of his own party over domestic-abuse allegations he has disputed in court filings. Miller was among 16 congressional Republicans who met with O’Brien at a roundtable in November 2024. The Ohio Conference of Teamsters endorsed Miller in July, citing his vote for the union-backed Faster Labor Contracts Act. Miller’s lifetime voting score on labor issues stands at 14% from the AFL-CIO, The Guardian reported. The Ohio conference did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

O’Brien also made a $1,000 donation in May 2025 to Markwayne Mullin, now serving as Trump’s secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. The donation came after a November 2023 Senate hearing in which Mullin challenged O’Brien to a physical fight while reading aloud social media posts in which O’Brien had criticized Mullin. After Trump’s 2024 election win, the two publicly reconciled during the February 2025 confirmation hearings for Lori Chavez Deremer as secretary of labor.

O’Brien’s 2024 appearance at the RNC marked a sharp break from the rhetoric he used to win the union’s presidency in 2021, when he called Trump “our enemy” and accused the previous Teamsters leadership of failing to stand up to Trump’s first administration. The national union declined to make a 2024 presidential endorsement for the first time since 1996, citing internal polling it said showed a majority of members backed Trump after supporting Joe Biden in 2020. Teamsters locals and councils representing roughly 1 million members independently endorsed Kamala Harris.

O’Brien has defended the Republican-facing posture as the Trump administration has pursued policies opposed by the majority of the nation’s largest labor unions, including an ongoing attempt to strip collective-bargaining rights from more than 1 million federal workers.

O’Brien faced an attempted leadership challenge earlier in 2026, but the rival slate failed to reach the 5% delegate threshold needed to make the ballot. O’Brien’s slate was then re-elected to another five-year term, unopposed.

John Palmer, an at-large vice-president on the Teamsters executive board who broke with O’Brien over the 2024 RNC appearance, said the strategy of engaging Republicans has produced no results for the union. “The Republicans have done nothing but take a gun to our head at every turn. And why we think that we can somehow change their behavior, I don’t understand it. It’s not a logical argument,” Palmer told The Guardian. “I live in Texas. I’m a moderate guy, but I know when somebody’s trying to cut my throat.”

The Teamsters national union and O’Brien did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Guardian.