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This article is part of The 74’s EDelection 2024 coverage, which looks at the candidates’ education policies and how they might impact the American the education system after the 2024 elections.

With just days until Election Day, the National Education Association’s main political fundraising arm, the NEA Advocacy Fund, has raised nearly $27 million, according to the latest data from OpenSecrets – basically all in an attempt to elect Vice President Kamala Harris and get more Democrats in the House and Senate.

The nation’s largest union, with more than 3 million members, is traditionally one of the biggest supporters of Democrats, lending both the strength of its various political action committees for advertising and mailings and its strength in numbers to boot. on-the. – operations to remove the vote from the ground.

“Across the country, most of us want the same thing — strong public schools where every student, regardless of their race, place or background, can grow to their full potential,” NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement. statement to The 74. “Educators know that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are tireless champions for students and educators who will work to support strong public schools, expand mental health services in schools, ensure that no student goes hungry and will lower costs for middle-class families.”

“As some of the most trusted people in every community, NEA members knock on doors, make phone calls and talk to their communities about voting for Harris and Walz, along with pro-public education candidates up and down the ballot,” she . said. “They are using their voices as educators because they know the future of our public schools and our students will be shaped by what happens in this election.”

Among the top 20 PACs based on contributions to Democratic candidates, total fundraising, total spent, and total spent in independent expenditures and communications costs, NEA PACs rank 11th, according to OpenSecrets, the nonpartisan organization that tracks money in politics. He donated $3 million directly to the Harris campaign.

The vast majority of the syndicate’s super PAC spending — $6.9 million in total this election cycle — has gone to other super PACs that support Democrats. As of October 8, the NEA Advocacy Fund gave $2.5 million to Future Forward USA Action, the pro-Harris super PAC and the largest in American politics. He also distributed $1.5 million each to the House Majority PAC and the Senate Majority PAC in an effort to maintain the slim Democratic majority in the Senate and pick up seats to gain a majority in the House.

So far, the NEA’s super PAC has spent $430,000 on media, including things like online, TV and radio ads and mailings, and another $100,000 on campaign expenses.

It is also spent about $630,000 on targeted federal election candidates, including $150,000 to Rep. John Mannion, a New York Democrat, $130,000 to Raquel Teran, a Democrat running in Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District, and $35,000 to incumbent Sen. John Tester , a Montana Democrat who is in a tough re-election bid.

In Ohio, where Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown is in a hot fire against Republican Bernie Moreno, a separate NEA super PAC, Educators for Ohio, raised $1.7 million.

Earlier this month, the NEA teamed up with the American Federation of Teachers, the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees—the nation’s largest public service unions—in a coordinated, multi-pronged initiative. -state voter awareness around the world. battleground states.

“This joint action represents a significant escalation of the political commitment of the workforce, with unions pooling resources and mobilizing their combined membership of several million workers and includes people from all backgrounds who work in the public service – as nurses, service providers childcare workers, sanitation workers first. respondents, teachers, education support professionals, and higher education workers, among others,” the effort’s announcement reads.

Notably, unions play an outsized role in many of the election’s top swing states: 21 percent of the vote cast in Michigan in the 2020 presidential election came from union households, representing about one-fifth of the electorate, according to the union. The same is true for Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where union households accounted for 18 percent and 13 percent of the votes cast, respectively.

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