Senator Bob Casey campaigned among labor groups on Saturday

US Senator. Bob Casey called Saturday “Labor Day” in his campaign.

Pennsylvania Democrat Locked In tough fight for re-election, addressed hundreds of union workers throughout Philadelphia as they held get-out-the-vote events and knocked on doors 10 days before Election Day.

“We have to remind them that the right to organize a union is on the ballot in this election because that’s the next right they’re marching for,” Casey told a crowd of union members gathered by Communications Workers of America to knock on doors for their campaign and vice presidential campaigns Kamala Harris.

He noted that his Republican opponent, a businessman Dave McCormickreceived significant funding from Wall Street-backed Super PACS. He pointed to this as evidence that McCormick would support tax cuts for the wealthy rather than for working-class Americans.

“Do you really think that those billionaires who support him and these big corporations, do you really think that they give a damn about the right to organize?” Casey asked as union members in the audience shouted “no.”

Casey’s battle against McCormick has become increasingly tense in recent weeks as the Democrat seeks a fourth term in the U.S. Senate. How Democrats Working to get out the vote before Election Day, Casey returned to one of his key union constituencies and attended three separate union events in the Philadelphia area on Saturday.

McCormick held a rally Saturday with veterans in the Lehigh Valley. While Casey has earned the support of a wide range of labor groups in the race, McCormick has the support of several police unions and the Philadelphia Firefighters and Paramedics Union.

Casey started the day with a rally in Spring garden organized by the Regional Council of Carpenters of the Eastern Atlantic States. He organized a Day of Action to organize with the mayor of Philadelphia. Sherell L. ParkerAttorney General candidate Eugene DePasquale, Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D-Philadelphia) and others. He attended a CWA presentation in Northeast Philadelphia and was scheduled to visit the American Federation of Teachers in Delaware County during the day.

“Our party would not have been successful in any election if it were not for the men and women of the unions,” Casey said in an interview. “For generations they have been the core strength of the Democratic Party. And we need to make sure that when we present our closing arguments to voters, we lift up unions and their work.”

While union leaders remained broadly supportive of Trump, union members shifted to the right, forming a key constituency of Trump supporters in the recent election.

Bill Sproul, secretary-treasurer of the Eastern Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, said union officials need to encourage voting among their members and the community at large. Although union members have supported Trump since 2016, Sproul said he believes some of those members are “bouncing back.”

“When the former president changed the tax law in 2017, the following year was a wake-up call for many union members and many union households,” Sproul said.

Members of more than a dozen trade unions gathered in Northeast Philadelphia before knocking on doors Saturday, some traveled from New York and New Jersey to the battleground state to encourage other union members to vote for Harris and Casey.

“They are going to do everything they can to destroy unions,” Claude Cummings Jr., president of the Communications Workers of America, said of Trump and his running mate, the Ohio senator. JD Vance.

Several union members at Saturday’s rally said they were not primarily motivated by labor rights, but rather by immigrant rights and defending democracy.

Dennis Dunn, a 50-year-old lineman from Philadelphia who knocked on doors Saturday, said he was glad Harris and Walz were pro-union, but his main motivator was the feeling that democracy was under threat. He became emotional discussing memories of Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to block the certification of the president. Joe Bidenvictory.

“Watching the Confederate flag fly through the halls of Congress — something that should never have happened — broke me almost as a person,” Dunn said.

Ava Green-Harris still has a heavy heart. This time with an additional electoral reason: her citizenship.

The New York resident, who was born in the Bahamas, became a citizen as a child after her parents naturalized. But she fears a second Trump presidency would jeopardize her citizenship and voting rights because she was not born in the United States.

To ease her worries, she joined her union in Philadelphia to help people understand “the importance of having the right to vote.”

“We don’t want to go back to the past,” Green-Harris said. “It’s important to get people to vote, to make sure they vote and contribute to democracy.”