Organized labor says it plans to go all-out to defeat Blanche Lincoln, the Democratic senator from Arkansas, in a June 8 runoff election against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter.  “We’re certainly ready and able to spend whatever we need to spend on behalf of Halter,” said Karen Ackerman, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s political director.  She said labor’s big push for Mr. Halter — including more than 60,000 phone calls and 200,000 leaflets distributed at work sites — helped prevent Ms. Lincoln from obtaining the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.  “We look forward to the runoff,” Ms. Ackerman said in a phone briefing on Wednesday. “We’re in it to win it, and we’ll spend the next three weeks in a very aggressive, continuing campaign to turn out union voters.”  Ms. Ackerman said unions campaigned against Ms. Lincoln because she opposed the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier to unionize workers, and had voted against Craig Becker to serve on the National Labor Relations Board. (President Obama gave him a recess appointment.)  “She waffled on health care, and she was not for the public option or other issues we care about,” Ms Ackerman said. “If you look at the record, there’s no question why union voters would reject her and move toward Halter.”  On Tuesday night, Ms. Lincoln derided the influence of outside groups. In her speech, Ms. Lincoln, like Mr. Halter, sought to portray the election results (43 percent for Ms. Lincoln and 42 percent for Mr. Halter,) as a victory. “They thought they could write us off, but guess what — they’ve got another thing coming,” she said. “My humble appreciation goes out first to the Democratic voters of Arkansas who have really recognized that this campaign is not – it is not, folks — about the outside groups who are trying desperately to exert their influence here.”  The Service Employees International Union and several of the other unions that quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O. also campaigned hard for Mr. Halter, running numerous broadcast spots, one of them criticizing Ms. Lincoln for backing trade deals that the unions said hurt the Arkansas economy. All told, unions spent more than $3 million on behalf of Mr. Halter.  Mary Kay Henry, the service employees’ new president, said, “Working families all over the state of Arkansas have sent a clear message: they will not stand up for those who fail to stand for them.”  While declaring Tuesday’s election results a “real victory for working people,” Ms. Ackerman acknowledged that the candidate the A.F.L.-C.I.O. had endorsed in Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary — Arlen Specter — had lost to Representative Joe Sestak. She noted that several individual unions had backed Mr. Sestak.  Several conservative groups critical of labor, including Workforce Fairness Institute, said that Mr. Specter’s defeat showed that the unions’ endorsement could backfire for many candidates.  Labor leaders were quick to say that they thought Mr. Sestak would be an excellent candidate. “He ran a strong campaign that proudly emphasized his support for the workers of Pennsylvania,” said Richard Trumka, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s president.  Union officials also said they greatly contributed to the victory of Mark Critz, the Democratic candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 12th district. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. said labor unions made 33,000 phone calls on his behalf, knocked on 16,000 doors and distributed 75,000 worksite fliers. The labor federation also said that it had mailed out 80,000 fliers backing Mr. Critz, that state and local unions had mailed out 30,000 and that the Alliance for Retired Americans, a labor-backed group of retirees, had mailed out 13,000.  Ms. Ackerman maintained that jobs were the No. 1 issue in Tuesday’s vote.  “In all our polling, middle-income people and working people are really scared about what the future will look like, and they desperately want to elect candidates who will fight to create jobs,” she said.  Shaila Dewan contributed to this post.
Labor groups promise to keep up their campaign to defeat the incumbent senator from Arkansas in the June 8 runoff.