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Associated PressBy MARTHA RAFFAELE | Associated Press Writer
HARRISBURG, Pa. - Barack Obama won the votes of most union members who cast ballots in last week's election, but union members in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Washington and Michigan were especially supportive of the Democratic president-elect.
Obama received 60 percent of the union vote in 14 states where voters were asked if they were union members, according to an exit poll by The Associated Press. The survey found that Obama was favored by roughly seven in 10 union voters in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Washington and Michigan.
In all four states, union support for Obama was stronger than it was for Democrat John Kerry in 2004. Although union membership has been dwindling nationally, all four have membership rates higher than the national average of 12 percent of wage and salary workers.
Organized labor contributed nearly $312,000 to Obama in the 2008 election cycle, nearly 20 times as much as it gave to Republican nominee John McCain, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
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