How AFL-CIO members voted in the 1984 election

AFL-CIO members gave Walter Mondale a bigger vote than the general electorate gave Ronald Reagan, according to two nationwide election night surveys completed by Pollsters Peter Hart and Vic Fingerhut.

Sixty-one percent of AFL-CIO members voted for the Mondale-Ferraro ticket, compared to 41 percent of the general electorate, a 20-point difference. Ronald Reagan captured only 39 percent of the union-member vote. This shift toward the Democratic Presidential candidate was all the more remarkable in the face of a sizable move in the opposite direction on the part of other voters.

The results show that Walter Mondale won a considerably larger share of the vote among Democratic AFL-CIO members than he did among all Democrats; similarly, Ronald Reagan's margin with Independents was considerably smaller among union voters than in the national electorate. Pollster Peter Hart notes the significance of these figures:

"These results are important, because they indicate that the impact of AFL-CIO affiliation transcended party identification in members' voting decisions . . . In an election in which the Democratic nominee was severely weakened by major defections from the ranks of Democratic voters, the AFL-CIO was successful in maintaining a high degree of Democratic solidarity among its membership."

Union members who voted for Reagan do not support many specific programs of his Administration, according to the AFL-CIO polls. By large majorities, union members who voted for Reagan oppose Administration plans to cut back on education and job training programs, deregulate worker safety and health protection, impose a new tax on employer-paid fringe benefits, and reduce the role of labor unions in society. The Surveys

The surveys were commissioned by the AFL-CIO to gain insight into the voting patterns and attitudes of AFL-CIO members and their households.

The first telephone survey of 1,031 voters in households in which AFL-CIO members reside was completed by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc. A random sample was selected from the AFL-CIO membership list covering all 50 states. Interviews were completed with anyone who indicated he or she had voted in the presidential election. Sixty percent were members; forty percent were non-members living in the household.

A second sample of AFL-CIO members only was interviewed by Fingerhut-Granados Opinion Research. Telephone interviews were completed with 1,011 members using identical survey questions.

The two surveys were later combined to provide larger subgroups for analysis by the Hart polling organization. The data reflects the same proportion of males, females and racial groups as that determined by the Survey of Current Population of the U.S. Bureau of the Census for union members. The margin of error for the combined sample of 1,683 AFL-CIO members is 2.5 percent; that for the 1,031 AFL-CIO households is 3.2 percent. Comparison With Network Exit Polls

According to the Hart poll, AFL-CIO household voter (non-members as well as members) supported Mondale over Reagan by a 57 percent to 43 percent ratio. Several network exit polls accorded Mondale a slightly lesser proportion--53 to 55 percent of the "union household" vote.

Why this difference? Network exit polls include many households with whom the AFL-CIO has no chance to communicate: Teamsters and other non-affiliated unions and associations. Some of these organizations endorsed President Reagan, others have no political program.

The difference grows even larger when the sample is limited to AFL-CIO members. In both the Hart and Fingerhut surveys, the pro-Mondale percentage among AFL-CIO members was 61 percent. CBS exit poll data also show union members supporting Mondale by a higher proportion (57 percent) than union households (53 percent).

The voting patterns are even more significant when compared with all other voters in the electorate. The ABC network exit polls, for example, shows an 18-point difference in the vote for Walter Mondale when comparing "union households" to "all others." If the AFL-CIO member-support level for Mondale (61 percent) is used for the comparison, the difference increases to 25 percent. Voting Preferences for Congress

AFL-CIO members and household members voted for Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives in greater proportion than they voted for the Democratic Presidential nominee, as shown in the following table.

The vote for congressional Democrats was even higher among the following union-member subgroups: Hispanics, blacks, lower-income members and female members. A majority of Democrats who voted for Reagan switched back to the Democratic Party in their vote for Congress and the U.S. Senate. Presidential Preference by Demographic Subgroup

(Note: In this and subsequent sections, including the tables; all figures refer to AFL-CIO members only, a combined sample of 1,683 respondents.)

As shown in Table 3, nearly every demographic subgroup of members voted for Mondale-Ferraro by greater or lesser majorities. Exceptions to this rule were found among members who are Republicans, as well as among Independents and higher-level, white-collar workers (professional, technical and sales people).