About 80 canvassers gathered last Saturday at Brewery Workers Local 9 before heading to union households on Milwaukee’s West Side. Among them was DeLeon Jamison Jr., a United Steelworkers member who works at Strattec in Glendale. He distributed flyers supporting Democratic candidates, including gubernatorial hopeful David Crowley, state Senate candidate Robyn Vining and Assembly candidates Angelito Tenorio and Amy Zimmerman.

Jamison said Crowley’s pledges to promote homeownership, improve affordability and reduce taxes on working families appealed to him. He also supports Crowley’s call for more community input and stronger controls on data-center siting, saying residents should have a voice in deciding whether such facilities are built nearby and under what conditions.

Data centers have become a point of debate in the campaign. Jamison said their construction could provide immediate work for the building trades, while he wants younger members of his family to have access to union jobs in the future.

Labor groups are also focused on Act 10, the 2011 Wisconsin law that sharply restricted collective bargaining rights for most public-sector workers. Crowley supports repealing it, but that would likely require Democrats to regain control of the state Legislature. AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond described repeal as one opportunity for labor, and said eliminating Wisconsin’s right-to-work law is a larger goal. That law bars employers from requiring workers to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment.

Redmond said the labor movement is backing candidates it believes will support working families rather than endorsing political parties as a whole. Nationally, he wants Congress to pass the PRO Act, which would expand workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively.

The canvassing effort comes in a state where recent elections have been decided by relatively narrow margins. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers defeated Republican Tim Michels by about 90,000 votes in 2022, while Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson beat Democrat Mandela Barnes by roughly 27,000.

Wisconsin had an estimated 173,000 union members, or 6.4% of its workforce, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is fewer members than five years earlier, but labor’s reach also includes retirees and its ability to organize face-to-face outreach.

Marquette University political scientist Sam Harshner, associate director of the university’s Les Aspin Center for Government, said unions can have an outsized influence through door-knocking. Their ability to make personal contact, he said, can matter as people become more isolated and less likely to interact in person.

The neighborhood conversations reflected a range of views. A retired Communications Workers of America member who identified himself as Ken said he favored Crowley, arguing the Democrat would do more for ordinary residents. He also criticized Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany’s closeness to President Donald Trump. Ken and his spouse, Jean, said they planned to vote early.

Another resident, an electrical worker who said he was not a union member, said he had voted for Trump in 2024 but was uncertain whether he would vote this year. He said he did not believe politicians had his interests at heart.

Tiffany has support from some labor organizations, including the Milwaukee Police Association and Milwaukee Deputy Sheriffs’ Association. The article reported that Tiffany’s campaign and the Republican Party of Wisconsin did not respond to requests for comment.

Union organizers are also looking to competitive congressional races to help determine control of the U.S. House. In Wisconsin’s 1st District, Republican incumbent Bryan Steil faces Democrat Mitchell Berman; in the 3rd District, Democrat Rebecca Cooke is challenging Republican Derrick Van Orden. The outcomes could affect labor’s prospects for advancing its priorities in Congress.