In an election dominated by economic issues, hospitality workers are reshaping politics around their needs

“Groceries are unreal. Rent is too damn high. Gas is through the roof. Deportations have gone way too far. Our wages can’t keep up.” These are the refrains that UNITE HERE members across Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas kept hearing as they knocked on over 1.6 million doors in 2026.

***If you would like to speak with a canvasser or union leader about what they’re hearing on election day, please contact Benjy Cannon, [email protected], 202-714-1567.** 

With hours to go until the first results are released, union members are thinking about what an election dominated by economic issues means for the future of worker power in the United States.

“All year, our members have been telling their stories to voters, connecting the dots between politics and the struggles of daily life right now,” said Nia Winston, Secretary Treasurer of UNITE HERE. “Those union members will soon head back to their workplaces and talk to their co-workers about how they came to see politics as personal. They will fight and win contract fights and bring new workers into the labor movement with the skills they developed on the doors in red, blue, and purple parts of the country.”

“This work, which builds actual relationships between voters and organizers, between workers and other workers, only succeeds because it happens year-round, not just in the heat of an election. That is the type of organization we’ll need if we want to tackle the deep problems of inequality and anti-worker politics behind so much of the anger Americans are feeling. Our question for everyone that wins tonight: what’s your plan to help build this movement?”

While UNITE HERE has run huge door-knocking programs in swing-states and around the country for several election cycles, the union’s political program never sleeps.

“Candidates this cycle campaigned on pro-worker platforms because they realize that the country’s future hinges on working-class voters.” said Gwen Mills, President of UNITE HERE. “Whatever happens tonight, we are doubling down on organizing workers into unions, especially in parts of the country that are not union strongholds. Unions are the best way for working-class voters to become politically active—and to provide elected officials with concrete experiences of how workers can win contracts that transform peoples’ lives.”

UNITE HERE members across the country are still on the doors and will keep knocking until polls close.

***If you would like to speak with a canvasser or union leader about what they’re hearing on election day, please contact Benjy Cannon, [email protected], 202-714-1567.**

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