Clinton was holding a rally Tuesday in Dallas.
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Though Sanders, a senator from Vermont, has received the support of a few smaller unions, including those that represent nurses and postal workers, the major organizations have been lining up with Clinton, a former senator and secretary of State. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has worked hard to court labor support while championing a populist platform on the economy, taxes and minimum wage.
Hillary Clinton drew a sharp contrast with Bernie Sanders on health care and taxes on Tuesday, telling a fired-up audience at a local community college that as president, she would not raise taxes on the middle class. In a statement, Clinton said she was “deeply honored” by the endorsement.
She held a large event with union members in which she talked in detail about the particular challenges faced by the healthcare and child care workers SEIU represents and how she would confront them.
SEIU has 2 million members, and its announcement comes on top of about six other union endorsements for Clinton, which cover millions of people.
“Hillary Clinton has proven she will fight, deliver and win for working families”, Mary Kay Henry, the SEIU’s worldwide president, said in a statement. The SEIU has been a major force in the “Fight for $15” movement, which pushes for higher wages for workers, including fast-food employees.
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And in a sign of growing tensions between the two campaigns, Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said Clinton backed a health care network that “props up private insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies which have given so much money to her campaigns”. “While this endorsement is a feather in the cap of Clinton, it is a crushing defeat for Sanders, who desperately needed establishment support to legitimize his candidacy”. The populist unease was on display during the most recent presidential debate, when Sanders, a socialist firebrand, accused Clinton of fostering, and benefiting from, a cozy relationship with big-money interests. Though Clinton supports a more modest $12 minimum wage, the union says she “has spoken out in support of the Fight for $15 movement”. A third Democratic candidate, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, has been forced to shift staff from his Baltimore headquarters to Iowa and other early states as he struggles to raise money.
