IAM machinists union launches 'workers v billionaires' midterm tour

Nearly 700,000-member union targets nine battleground states

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) launched a “workers v billionaires” midterm campaign tour this week, directing its nearly 700,000 active and retired members in nine battleground states toward pro-worker candidates in the November elections.

IAM international president Brian Bryant told The Guardian the union has made “a strategic commitment that we’re going to be the most engaged that we have ever been in the history of our union in working” to influence the midterms. The campaign focuses on union members and voters in Maine, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and Illinois.

“We’re living in an economy that only favors billionaires and does not favor working people, and it’s time that Congress and this administration realize who they should be looking out for,” Bryant said.

Bryant emphasized that several IAM members voted for Trump in 2024 in response to the president’s repeated campaign pledge: “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one.” Since Trump took office, according to The Guardian’s reporting, inflation has risen from 3.0% in January 2025 to 3.4% in August 2026, health insurance costs have increased after Affordable Care Act subsidies expired, and gasoline prices are on average $1 per gallon higher — a rise the newspaper attributed to Trump’s war with Iran.

The campaign will “send a message to this administration that what the status quo is right now is not acceptable, and they’re going to have to stand up and pay attention to working people,” Bryant said.

IAM represents workers at Boeing, Lockheed Martin, United Airlines, and Harley-Davidson, among other employers. The union said its campaign is built on conducting member-to-member engagement with its membership about which issues matter most.

In Texas, IAM Local 776A president Jason Gayler said the state “is more purple than what people put out to be,” a characterization backed by recent polling showing Texas races are the most competitive they have been in decades. “The price of just the cost of living in north Texas now has absolutely skyrocketed, and it’s starting to really affect a lot of our members, which is motivating them to back candidates that focus primarily on the working class,” Gayler said.

Gayler noted that machinists recently elected their first rank-and-file member to the Texas Senate. Taylor Rehmet, president of IAM’s Texas state council, won a January special election, flipping a state senate district Trump carried by 17 percentage points in 2024.

In Arizona, Alaska Airlines worker Shay Blodgett, who is helping lead IAM’s political program in the state, said the union has worked to oppose Republican-led state legislation that would have restricted public-sector workers’ ability to organize and supported the Arizona AFL-CIO “labor 2026 blitz” campaign. The union also spent the summer conducting “member-to-member engagement” with members about which issues matter most. “We heard them loud and clear. The No 1 thing was the economy, cost of living, fuel prices, healthcare and food costs,” Blodgett said.

Rising home prices add to affordability pressures in the broader economy. The median sales price of houses sold in the United States reached $410,700 by mid-2026, according to Federal Reserve data.

Co-workers have expressed regret over voting for Republicans in 2024, particularly because transportation workers are exempt from the temporary no-tax-on-overtime deduction included in Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed last summer, The Guardian reported.

“The majority of our airline workers in the state will be entering contract negotiations in early 2027, and we need elected officials that will fix the economy and allow airline workers to fulfill the American dream of home ownership and raising families in Arizona,” Blodgett said.

In Pennsylvania, Rich Howell, former president of IAM Local 1776 and a longtime Philadelphia International Airport worker, said the union is backing Democrats seeking to win four congressional seats and the state Senate, while preserving the governorship and statehouse. Howell said Trump “said he was going to bring down the prices a year and a half ago. That was his campaign message. If you go back and see all the promises, there wasn’t one that he held.”

Howell framed the contest as a fight against concentrated political spending. “Money doesn’t buy a race,” Howell said, though he acknowledged that billionaires have spent more than $1.6 trillion on the 2026 midterm elections so far. “Trump put the tariffs on, cutting more jobs, hurting more people in our industry,” Howell said. “It’s billionaires versus the workers, and that’s the stance we’re making. They are getting rich and we’re paying for it. We’re paying for it out of our pockets.”