Last week, the Ohio Conference of Teamsters endorsed Sherrod Brown for the U.S. Senate in 2026. Not a surprise for anyone who has been paying attention to how union leadership actually operates. But for Republicans wondering if the organization represents something new in American labor politics, this endorsement of Brown says more than two years of press releases ever did.Brown is a Democrat running in a state that President Donald Trump has won three times. With this endorsement, the Ohio Conference of Teamsters did not weigh which candidate could best deliver for their members in a closely divided Senate. They chose the Democrat. That choice should be considered against the image the broader Teamsters organization has carefully cultivated to appeal to Republicans.Federal campaign finance data clearly show the pattern. The Teamsters gave 92% of their political contributions to Democrats in the 2024 cycle. In 2022, it was 97.5%. In 2020, 97%. In 2018, 96%. Going back to 1990, there is not a single election cycle in which the Teamsters gave Republicans more than 16% of their federal contributions. Yet the organization’s own internal polling in 2024 showed that a clear majority of members preferred a Trump endorsement over Harris. The leadership simply ignored it.