CAMPAIGN ’88 : Union Polls Members

The Communications Workers of America, one of the nation’s most politically active unions, announced Thursday that Dukakis and Jackson have pulled away from the rest of the Democratic field in the latest poll of the union’s members.

Among CWA members who said they would participate in coming primaries and caucuses, 38% said Dukakis was their first choice and 32% said they preferred Jackson. The other three contenders were far behind, with Gephardt getting 8%, Gore 5% and Simon 3%.

“Mike Dukakis has shown that he has the potential to win the nomination and win in November,” said CWA president Morton Bahr. He noted that Dukakis ran ahead of Vice President George Bush, leader in the race for the Republican nomination, in a head-to-head contest among 818 CWA members who were polled March 12-14.

Dukakis led Bush by 55% to 35% in the CWA poll, which showed Jackson and Gephardt running virtually even with the vice president among members of the union.

The head-to-head results were particularly interesting considering that more than half of the union’s members voted for Ronald Reagan against Walter F. Mondale in 1984, according to CWA spokesman Steve Rosenthal.

The CWA has 700,000 members, 53% of them women, widely scattered throughout the country.