By Sam Brodey Globe Staff, Updated September 6, 2026, 6:09 a.m.

One of the country’s most politically influential labor unions — and perhaps the one most reshaped by the Trump era —
appears to be at odds with itself over New Hampshire’s closely watched US Senate race.

Why the head of the Teamsters donate money to Scott Brown?

The local affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in New Hampshire has endorsed
Representative Chris Pappas, the leading Democratic candidate, calling him a staunch ally of workers in the state.
But the national Teamsters’ general president, Boston-area native Sean O’Brien, personally donated $1,000 to the
campaign of former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown, who’s running in the Republican primary in the Granite
State. Brown is the only active candidate for federal office anywhere in the country to whom O’Brien has personally
donated in this election cycle.

According to federal campaign finance records, that check came in February, days after Brown appeared on O’Brien’s
podcast, where the union boss praised Brown as an ally of workers and gave him free rein to slam Pappas’s record.
Near the end of their interview, O’Brien told Brown, “Hopefully, people like you can go down there with some common
sense and solutions to problems, or work to find solutions to problems, not draw lines in the sand.”
The apparent divide between O’Brien and local Teamsters may not be entirely political: Brown and O’Brien have known
each other for years, thanks to their shared roots in Massachusetts politics.

There’s a clear big-picture pattern, however, and it speaks to potent fissures within the Teamsters and organized labor
more broadly. In recent years, most union leaders have largely hung with Democrats as rank-and-file members,
especially in blue-collar trades, drifted to Donald Trump’s movement. But O’Brien has stood out among his cohort for
his willingness to court the MAGA right — epitomized by speaking before the 2024 Republican National Convention —
which has drawn internal criticism as Trump and his congressional allies largely maintain the GOP’s anti-labor union
stance.

A spokesperson for O’Brien did not respond to a request for comment, nor did officials with Teamsters Local 633. The
Brown campaign did not respond to a request for comment. The Pappas campaign declined to comment.
The stakes are high in New Hampshire’s Senate contest. With Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen retiring, her party is
hoping to protect the seat on their way toward retaking a Senate majority, while Republicans are seizing on the race as a
valuable opportunity to go on offense. In the Sept. 8 primary election, Pappas faces progressive activist Karishma
Manzur, while polls show Brown a clear underdog against former senator John E. Sununu, who is endorsed by Trump.
But New Hampshire is not the only sign of strong political cross-currents within a union that has symbolized how
Trump’s right-wing populism is changing the labor movement.

In April, the Pennsylvania Conference of Teamsters voted to endorse Paige Cognetti, the Democratic mayor of
Scranton, who is challenging Republican Representative Rob Bresnahan in one of the most competitive congressional
races in the country.

But Bresnahan has been a favorite of Teamsters leadership, with O’Brien hosting him on his podcast in January. In
May, the national Teamsters PAC gave $5,000 to Bresnahan. By June, the Pennsylvania Teamsters had reversed course
and backed Bresnahan.

In Texas, two prominent Teamsters locals endorsed Republican Governor Greg Abbott, historically a foe of organized
labor, over Democratic challenger Gina Hinojosa, who is backed by the vast majority of Texas unions. The move went
over poorly in some corners: John Palmer, a senior national Teamsters official from Texas,
said the endorsement was “embarrassing and appalling.” He accused O’Brien of putting his thumb on the scale to appeal to Abbott, which he called a “fool’s errand.”


Raised in Medford, O’Brien is a fourth-generation Teamster. He joined the union’s Local 25 in Charlestown at the age of
18, then swiftly climbed the ranks of union leadership. (He still lives in Massachusetts and serves as vice chairman of
the Massport Board of Directors.)

In 2022, O’Brien was elected to lead the Teamsters, who represent 1.3 million workers in the US and Canada. Most
come from the transportation and logistics sectors, but a wide array of blue-collar and white-collar workers are
members of the union.

Though O’Brien is a registered Democrat, in 2024, he became the first-ever Teamsters chief to address a Republican National Convention. (He did not speak at the Democratic National Convention but said he requested to do so.) The
national Teamsters did not endorse either Trump or former vice president Kamala Harris, but the union’s affiliates
in several key battleground states vocally supported Harris.

Since 2024, O’Brien has often pointed out that over 60 percent of Teamsters members voted for Trump. He says he
speaks with Trump regularly. He has argued that Republicans have a clear opportunity to overtake Democrats as the
true party of workers but is urging them to follow through with policies that deliver results that match their rhetoric.
The national Teamsters union, meanwhile, is a major campaign money player through its political action committee,
which has contributed nearly $8 million to candidates and party committees in this election cycle. They support both
parties but tend to favor Democrats. Pappas received $4,000 from the Teamsters PAC last September.
No Teamsters organization, either local or national, formally endorsed Brown in any of his previous three campaigns
for Senate. The union strongly backed Senator Elizabeth Warren in her successful challenge to Brown in 2012, but Carl
Gentile, the former leader of the Teamsters in Worcester, got some attention for endorsing Brown in that campaign.

On his podcast in January, O’Brien noted Pappas has “some union support” but asked Brown whether it was “accurate”
his possible Democratic opponent is pro-union.
Brown began by talking about his own longtime membership in performing arts and media union SAG-AFTRA, which
he leaned on to burnish his worker credentials when running against Warren.
“There’s still people who are contributing dues, which I did for decades,” said Brown. “Chris Pappas has never done
that. … What has he done for the unions? Like, what has he actually sponsored and passed that helps unions?”
O’Brien noted Pappas’s co-sponsorship of the Faster Labor Contracts Act, a key legislative priority of labor unions.
Brown and O’Brien both agreed it was “easy” for Pappas to do so, but when O’Brien asked him whether he would

support the legislation, the Republican didn’t give a definitive answer, saying he would “learn more about that
particular issue.”
In their endorsement of Pappas, Teamsters Local 633 said the Democrat “stood shoulder to shoulder with working
families, fought for fair wages and benefits, and defended workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively.” They
credited Pappas for “support[ing] infrastructure investments, protect[ing] pensions, and work[ing] to lower the cost of
health care and prescription drugs.”
Also in their hourlong conversation, O’Brien and Brown discussed the big-picture political shifts taking place among
union members.
“I believe that the Republican Party is now the party of the working people, and that the Democratic Party is the party
of the elites, the billionaires, and trillionaires,” Brown said.

O’Brien said the GOP “could be” the party of workers but said they had yet to prove it, and expressed some frustration
with Republicans who talked a big game on supporting labor but eventually failed to support key bills when faced with
pressure from their own party leadership.
“There’s issues where the Republicans right now could take the ball and really run with it, and I’m encouraging that
every single day because, clearly, the Democrats lost the support of the rank and file, not necessarily the leadership, but
the rank and file of all our unions,” O’Brien said.
Addressing Brown — who O’Brien said has “proven over time and time again” that he supports working people — the
union boss gave some advice. “I’d be out there saying, what are your issues?”