DETROIT—On Election Day, the fight for the future of the country is being waged one door, one workplace, and one worker-to-worker discussion at a time.
At the UNITE HERE Local 24 office in Detroit Tuesday morning, national labor leaders joined union volunteers to launch a massive get-out-the-vote (GOTV) canvass across the city. The ground game is part of the Michigan labor movement’s most exhaustive voter outreach program to date, featuring door-knocking in every single battleground district.
The Michigan AFL-CIO told People’s World it has established 15 campaign sites across the state, knocked on over 250,000 doors, sent over a million mailers, and made 132,000 calls to union households.
“It’s awesome. It shows you the importance of Michigan,” Ron Bieber, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, told People’s World. “We’re gonna elect worker-friendly politicians who are gonna put workers’ issues first. We’re going to make workers’ rights in Michigan the priority in the state again.”
The energy inside the union hall on Election Day morning was electric. According to a pre-election memo from the AFL-CIO, enthusiasm among union members about voting in this year’s election sits at 83%. That’s ten percentage points higher than the last off-year election in 2022 and an astonishing 12 percentage points higher than any other subgroup of voters.
Furthermore, 71% of union members say they trust their unions to deliver accurate information—making union members the most credible and effective messengers in the country to cut through the barrage of billionaire-funded political ads.
“All those crazy attacks, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about us,” UNITE HERE International President Gwen Mills told the crowd of canvassers. “Union members are the best canvassers on voting because you face the bullshit that happens at work, what a boss does to try to divide us.
“So, this shit out there is nothing new. But we can talk to other people who don’t yet have a union job, ’cause we’re going to get everyone into a union job someday. That’s what we’re fighting for.”
Billionaires vs. the working class
Across the country, working people are facing skyrocketing costs for groceries, gas, rent, and healthcare, while wages fail to keep up. Meanwhile, big business interests and extreme right-wing billionaires have dumped mountains of money into the 2026 midterms to buy the election.
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, who joined the Detroit canvass launch, laid out the difference between the working class and the billionaire class.
“As goes Michigan, so goes the country, and the labor movement is so strong here,” Shuler told People’s World. “The fact is that this election is about the labor movement and working-class people.”
Shuler called out the massive spending by the far-right, particularly trillionaire Elon Musk. “Elon Musk has spent almost $500 million alone. One person. He can buy Twitter. He can buy his little rocket ships. But he cannot buy our democracy.”
Instead, Shuler urged workers to elect working-family-friendly candidates up and down the ballot, specifically pointing to Jocelyn Benson for Governor, Abdul El-Sayed for U.S. Senate, and Eli Savit for Attorney General.
El-Sayed’s working-class campaign has terrified the MAGA establishment and the pro-Israel lobby, which has spent over $100 million trying to prop up his opponent, Mike Rogers. El-Sayed has been endorsed by numerous unions in Michigan, including the United Auto Workers, UNITE HERE, United Food and Commercial Workers, National Nurses United, and the American Federation of Teachers.
When asked what electing El-Sayed would mean for the labor movement, Shuler was direct.
“He’s a union member. He knows our issues. He knows working people. You don’t have to send him a memo on grocery prices,” she told People’s World. “He understands the needs and aspirations of working people. And we need that voice in the Senate.”
Mills echoed that sentiment, explaining to People’s World why she spent her Election Day in Detroit.
“Electing Abdul El-Sayed means our members would have a champion in the Senate and someone who’s not afraid to really push policies that matter for working families…. It would show that you can win on the issues, not just because [of] how much corporate donors or how much money you have behind you.”
The ‘People’s Attorney General’
At the kick-off, the energy was focused on building a labor- and community-led movement that will protect workers’ rights first and foremost. Eli Savit, the candidate for Michigan Attorney General, fired up the packed union crowd.
“Labor built this thing,” Savit told People’s World. “And I think what we’re going to see here tonight is working people standing up in solidarity and electing our ticket. So, there’s no place that I think is more appropriate to be, or that I’d rather be, than starting a day with my friends in labor.”
Addressing the crowd, Savit promised that his first 100 days in office would include creating a dedicated Workers’ Rights Unit in the Department of Attorney General.
“Workers’ rights are under attack. They’re under attack like they’ve never been before,” Savit said. “We are seeing the billionaires trying to buy our democracy and take away our right to organize. We need to be fighting back against all of this in court.
“We have no other mandate but to stand with the working people of this state—going after wage theft, going after the attacks on our labor rights, going after workplace safety violations,” Savit declared. “It’s long past time that we have that here in Michigan, and that’s going to change in January.”
As the workers and canvassers grabbed their clipboards, election protection t-shirts, voter guide materials, and prepared to head out into the streets, Shuler reminded them of their power.
“We have the ability to cut through the damn noise of those TV ads. We have credibility, we open people’s ears in a way that no one else does,” Shuler said. “So, let’s go out. Are you ready to find that last vote today?”
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