The appearance of Sean O' Brien, president of the Teamsters Union, in a key speaking slot at the Republican National Convention, raised a lot of eyebrows across the political spectrum about what is going on both with unions and with the Republican Party.

The union agenda and the traditional Republican agenda -- free markets, free trade, free labor market competition -- is not a cocktail that we usually think of as going together.

But we are in a political time of razor-thin margins. Swing states will be won by margins hovering around 1%. Winning swing votes depends on the ability to penetrate the gray, to win over voters who may not be 100% on board with the candidate or the party's whole platform -- but who see the benefits of one side as exceeding the costs of the other side.

Trump has had success with union voters. In 2016, he got 42% of the vote of union households. In 2020, 40%.

According to a recent survey from Pew Research, 39% of........

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