A Landslide With a Monitor Watching

Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers, won re-election with more than 68 per cent of the vote as of Friday evening, the Guardian reported, citing unofficial results; it said 13 other candidates on his United UAW slate had also won their races. His closest opponent, Rich Boyer, received just over 13 per cent. According to the election site run by the union’s court-appointed monitor, ballots were first mailed on or about 21 August, had to reach the designated post office by 5 October, and tabulation began on 6 October in Rosemont, Illinois. The results are unofficial: Jacobin reported on Friday that they would not be finalised for some time, and the monitor’s election site had posted no 2026 tallies when this article was published.

How many voted

The margin is not in doubt. The turnout is the other number. In These Times reported that roughly 10 per cent of the union’s 400,000 active members and 600,000 retirees returned mail ballots, which is about 100,000 people by this publication’s arithmetic, not a count from the union. Retirees vote on top officers. In These Times called turnout similar to that of 2022, when the UAW held its first direct election of top officers; Jacobin said the total vote was on track to come in lower.

Before that, officers were elected by delegates at the union’s annual convention, a system Jacobin said had kept the ruling Administration Caucus in power for more than seven decades. In These Times described the vote as the second time members have elected their top officers in the union’s 91 years. Fain, who beat the incumbent Ray Curry in a runoff and took office in March 2023, is on track to be the first directly elected president to win a second term, Jacobin said.

In These Times reported that Fain faced five opponents, that the slate’s secretary-treasurer candidate, Brandon Campbell, took about two-thirds against two rivals including the incumbent, Margaret Mock, and that vice-presidential candidates needed 16.7 per cent to win. If the slate sweeps, it said, it would hold every seat on the International Executive Board except one regional director’s. The outlets’ counts of the slate do not match: Jacobin wrote that it fielded candidates for 11 of the 12 board positions, which does not square with the Guardian’s figure of 13 winners besides Fain.

The accusations and the monitor

The campaign was marked by accusations of corruption and election interference, the Guardian said. In July the Justice Department announced it was investigating Fain over allegations that he pressured Boyer to provide benefits to his fiancee and sister and then retaliated when Boyer refused. Fain denied the allegations and called them an attempt to interfere in the election, the Guardian reported.

He has also clashed with Neil Barofsky, the union’s independent monitor, whom he accuses of being weaponised by his challenger, the Guardian said. The monitor was also accused of pressuring Fain over the union’s resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Jacobin’s account is more detailed and comes from an interested party. Its author, who wrote that he worked as Fain’s chief of staff from 2023 until earlier this year, said the monitor had accused him and Fain of retaliation in a series of reports that they contest as inaccurate and politically motivated, and that a recording of a call between Fain and Barofsky was published in July by Drop Site News. This publication has not heard the recording and cannot say what is on it. Barofsky’s side is set out in his own filings. In a status report filed with the federal court in Michigan on 25 June, he concluded that none of the seven reasons Fain gave for removing Boyer’s oversight of the union’s Stellantis department justified it, and that Fain’s actions “were improper and fit into what has become a recurring pattern of retaliation.” The report says the union reversed the decision by 9 January 2026.

Boyer, Mock and another outgoing board member, Mike Booth, ran together as the Integrity Slate, according to In These Times, which said Boyer’s main pitches were to lower union dues and reduce headquarters staff. In These Times spoke to a dozen members. They cited pensions and retiree health care as their main reasons for supporting Fain, along with concerns about automation and job security, and said above all the contracts the union has won since he took office.

What Fain says is next

“The membership has spoken,” Fain said in a statement. “UAW members are united and want us to keep fighting and building on what we’ve done.” He pointed to coming negotiations at John Deere, Volvo and General Dynamics Land Systems in 2027 and to the contracts with the three Detroit automakers, which expire on May Day 2028, the Guardian reported. “These results are about taking on corporate America and reversing the worst out-of-control wealth inequality in America’s history,” he said.

The result is a test of what direct elections produce. They produce a clear winner. On this evidence they do not produce a large electorate, so a landslide among the one in ten who vote is a mandate, but a narrower one than the percentage suggests. And a ballot cannot by itself dispose of a Justice Department investigation or a dispute with a monitor who is appointed from outside the union.

Sources

The vote shares as of Friday evening, the slate’s wins, the Justice Department investigation, Fain’s denial and statement, and the 2027 and 2028 contract dates are from the Guardian, which attributes the results to unofficial counts. The ballot timetable is from the monitor’s official election site, uawvote.com. Barofsky’s findings are from the monitor’s Sixteenth Status Report, filed on 25 June 2026 in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Turnout, the opponents, the board arithmetic, the Integrity Slate and the member interviews are from In These Times, a labour magazine with a pro-union editorial line. The history of direct elections, the eleven-of-twelve figure, the unofficial status of the results and the account of the dispute with the monitor are from Jacobin, whose author, Chris Brooks, discloses his past employment by Fain. The estimate of about 100,000 voters is this publication’s calculation.