Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

An unintended interest group: The unemployed

Unemployment

Steve Marcus

Union members rally last week at the Painters and Allied Trades, District Council 15 and Local Union 159, union hall in Henderson.

Union Rally for Jobs

Juana Valladares, center, a house person at Harrah's, attends a rally at the Painters and Allied Trades, District Council 15 and Local Union 159, union hall in Henderson Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010. The rally of union members and unemployed workers was held to attack Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle for her position against Launch slideshow »

Nevada has 461,000 Democratic voters, 403,000 Republican voters and 195,000 unemployed residents.

Forget teachers and firefighters. Unemployed workers are the special-interest group to watch this election season. Indeed, they make up a bigger portion of the electorate than the state’s 168,000 nonpartisan voters, who experts agree will likely decide November races.

Nevada leads the nation in unemployment; at least 14.3 percent of residents are out of work. The numbers could be even higher because tallies don’t account for people who have given up looking for jobs.

Disparaged by politicians who call them “spoiled” and beaten down by constant rejection from potential employers, the unemployed will have a chance to turn the tables and do the hiring, or firing, Nov. 2.

Because of the narrow margin between major party voters, they alone could determine the outcome of the elections.

But “it depends on the degree those people are mobilized,” said David Damore, a political-science professor at UNLV.

Democrats are lobbying the unemployed more aggressively than Republicans.

Labor unions are courting them, urging them to vote Democratic. All of the major unions have endorsed Democrats: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Rep. Dina Titus and gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid.

Working America, the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate, recently launched an Unemployed Voter Project to encourage the jobless to vote for Democrats, who the union says better protect unemployed workers and have proven records on job creation. Members are targeting voters at unemployment offices and job training centers, canvassing neighborhoods and hosting telephone conferences. They also will organize a “Pledge to Vote” postcard campaign during which unemployed workers will write notes to other unemployed workers to encourage them to vote.

“You don’t typically think of unemployed workers as an interest group, probably because there has never been a large-scale effort to organize them,” Working America Las Vegas member coordinator Emmelle Israel said. “But elections are a really big opportunity for unemployed people to have a voice.”

Data show that voice is more likely to trend Democratic.

Take the U.S. Senate race. Polls of all voters consistently show Reid and Republican Sharron Angle in a near tie, but polls of unemployed voters show Reid ahead 48 percent to 39 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.

Many unemployed workers interviewed by the Sun said Angle’s description of them as “spoiled” was offensive and lost her their vote.

In June, Angle said government entitlements have “spoiled our citizenry,” a comment she later called “a mistake.” Angle also has said she would not have voted to extend unemployment benefits, explaining on “Face to Face With Jon Ralston” that extensions result in “people (who) are afraid to go out and get a job because the job doesn’t pay as much as the benefit.”

“Calling me spoiled is not the way to get me to choose her. She was being insulting to me on a personal level,” said Stephanie Moreno, a painter who has been out of work since March. “She doesn’t know the things that I’ve lost like my home, my vehicle. This month I’ll lose my personal health insurance. If she thinks she’s so high up there, she can come spend a day with me and see what I go through.”

Click to enlarge photo

An iron worker wears his helmet during a rally at the Painters and Allied Trades, District Council 15 and Local Union 159, union hall in Henderson Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010. The rally of union members and unemployed workers was held to attack Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle for her position against "creating" jobs.

Online forums for unemployed workers reveal a similar trend toward Reid. In 40 postings on the Nevada page of unemployed-friends.com, not a single commenter sided with Angle or the GOP.

“The Republicans REALLY Goofed on this one!” wrote one commenter, JGLasVegas. “By not supporting the extension of UI benefits, no matter what reasons that were spun (ie. not wanting to add to the deficit), they may have lost all chances of taking over the House in November. The last time I checked, out of the 2 million+ people that did not receive benefits ... some of them are probably Repub, and have solidly voted for that party for years. When you can’t feed your family, NOTHING else matters! That will be your FIRST priority. Not the deficit, not your hate toward ... Reid, Pelosi, the Dems ... just having the ability to feed your family.”

Republicans are trying to blame Democrats for the rise in unemployment. They say the policies advocated by Reid and other Democratic leaders caused the 2008 economic meltdown.

“I’m very confident that on Election Day people will remember that the Republican Party is the party of jobs and economic prosperity,” said Jahan Wilcox, spokesman for the Nevada Republican Party. “We’re the only party who believes it’s not government’s job to create jobs, that the private sector is the way to get people back to work.”

Midterm elections are typically difficult for the party in power. Frustrated voters tend to side with the opposition, as was the case in 2006, when Republicans lost the House.

But this year, Democratic proposals for job creation and economic growth seem to resonate with unemployed workers. Those interviewed by the Sun cited the extension of unemployment benefits, the stimulus package, Reid’s intervention with CityCenter’s lenders and an emphasis on government regulation of business as reasons for favoring Democratic candidates.

“There’s still sort of a Bush hangover in public opinion,” Damore said. “As loud as the Republicans want to say the Democrats are to blame, not everybody is buying that.”

Malcolm Petrie, an unemployed operating engineer, said government’s role should be to foster an atmosphere in which companies can create good-paying jobs — a philosophy that sounds like it comes directly from the Republican playbook. But Petrie said he will vote for Reid and Titus.

Petrie said businesses should be regulated to ensure safety and taxed to guarantee the government has funding for new projects that will create jobs.

“People will vote for their own economic interests,” Petrie said. “And the most important interest right now is a job.”

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