In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Sonia R. Vásquez Luna of LIUNA and Steven Gardner of NJ LECET to discuss working-class politics and the state government elections in New Jersey and Virginia that are taking place in 2025.
The panel covered a number of important topics, including whether working-class and worker power issues are part of the candidates’ campaigns. Our guests discussed whether unions in Virginia and New Jersey have an agenda that they want their endorsed candidates to implement if they are elected. They also addressed whether the two Democratic candidates are labor Democrats, focusing on working-class issues. Finally, Seth will ask Sonia and Stever to predict the outcomes of the elections in their states, and the effects that those expected outcomes might have on the 2026 midterm elections that will involve more governors and state legislators, but also every member of the U.S. House of Representatives and one-third of the U.S. Senate.
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Sonia R. Vásquez Luna is the Business Manager of Laborers' public employee local union 572, representing over 3,000 Public Employees and Service Contract members in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, and North Carolina. Ms. Luna is also a member of the Manassas, Virginia, city council.
Steve Gardner is the Director of the New Jersey Laborers Employers Cooperation and Education Trust, which is a labor-management partnership of the Laborers International Union of North America. Mr. Gardner is the former Executive Director of the New Jersey Assembly Majority Leader’s Office and a former Senior Advisor to Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald. Prior to his service in government, Mr. Gardner administered the New Jersey Laborers’ political action committees.
