Labor unions are spending record amounts on the upcoming election, potentially lifting Hillary Clinton into the White House and putting Democrats in control of the Senate.
According to The Wall Street Journal, unions have spent almost $110 million between January 2015 and August 2016 — 38 percent more than in the same time leading up to the 2012 election, and almost twice what was spent in that time before the 2008 election.
The AFL-CIO has spent $11.4 million on outside political groups, the National Education Association spent $14 million, almost twice what was spent at this point in the 2012 election.
GOP nominee Donald Trump "has successfully tapped into the anger and frustration out there among our members," said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, according to the Journal. "But once we give them the facts, his house of cards starts to tumble down pretty quickly."
According to Mike Knisley, leader in Lima, Ohio's local plumbers and pipefitters union, union members are less inclined to vote for Clinton this year than they were for President Barack Obama in 2012.
"I never thought I'd have a harder time selling a white woman candidate than a black candidate, but there you have it," Knisley told the Journal.
"There is this frustration of political correctness that has been going on for a long time," he added. "They see Trump as the guy who doesn't have to be PC — and I think they want to be that way, too."
Some unions, like the National Border Patrol Council, support Trump because of his Washington-outsider status.
"Unlike his opponents, Donald Trump is not a career politician, he is an outsider who has created thousands of jobs, pledged to bring about aggressive pro-American change, and who is completely independent of special interests," the Council wrote in a statement, according to Fortune.
"We don't need a person who has the perfect Washington-approved tone, and certainly NOT another establishment politician in the [White House]."
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