How Do Unions Create Candidates?

Organizations play a critical role in developing citizen political participation. Though unions are one of the few organizations focused on the social and economic well-being of the less advantaged in America, little is known about the processes and mechanisms by which they promote the political participation of workers. We use data from semi-structured interviews with teacher candidates for state office in the 2018 midterm elections to describe how their unions shaped their political engagement and their candidacies in particular. We find that teachers’ unions acted as “schools of democracy” in a series of three developmental stages revolving around (1) political awareness (knowledge, skills, and political identities), (2) political ambition (political efficacy and mobilization), and (3) political support (material resources and political capital). Our qualitative approach allows us to “peer into the black box” of candidate emergence to detail the long-term and often hidden mechanisms that enable unions to promote the political engagement of their members. We extend prior research on political organizations by illuminating how organizations help candidates—particularly those from underrepresented groups—develop their political skills, foster interest in public office, and ultimately support their campaigns.