AAUP Forges Ahead With Endorsements

The American Association of University Professors has endorsed 11 more Democrats running in U.S. House and Senate races this November, further cementing its evolving role as a political organization.

The association made its first-ever political endorsement in July, throwing its weight behind Abdul El-Sayed during Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary. The endorsement—an opening gambit from the AAUP, which resolved in June to get more aggressive in its defense of higher ed—drew backlash from some members and critics who say the association should maintain political neutrality. But Todd Wolfson, president of the AAUP, has said for months that getting more politically involved is necessary to protect higher education from an onslaught of federal and state attacks.

“[We’re] going to fight for the future of higher education, academic freedom, research funding, our students and their debt, their ability to graduate and get good jobs. We see those things as sacrosanct,” Wolfson said. “And we understand that the way to fight for them is to be involved in politics proper and to find candidates who are going to stand with us.”

On Tuesday, the AAUP announced its support of other Senate candidates, including Angie Nixon, a current Florida state representative and Democratic Socialist who is running against Republican Ashley Moody, the incumbent. The association is also supporting Sherrod Brown, the former U.S. senator from Ohio who lost re-election in 2024 while seeking a fourth term. He is now running as the Democratic nominee in a special election against incumbent Republican Sen. Jon Husted. El-Sayed, who won his primary in August, maintains the AAUP’s support in the Nov. 3 general election.

Nine Democrats running for U.S. House seats earned AAUP endorsements, including Will Lawrence in Michigan’s seventh district, Donavan McKinney in Michigan’s 13th district, Rebecca Bennett in New Jersey’s seventh district, Adam Hamawy in New Jersey’s 12th district, incumbent Analilia Mejia in New Jersey’s 11th district, Cait Conley in New York’s 17th district and Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania’s third district.

Brad Lander and Claire Valdez—running to represent New York’s seventh and 10th districts, respectively—also received the AAUP’s stamp of approval. Both attended a forum held by the City University of New York’s Professional Staff Congress—an affiliate of the AAUP—last year, where they promised to “fight for policies aligned very closely with our blueprint,” Wolfson said. Neither will have “particularly competitive races … but we know that when they are elected and seated, they will be fighting for a free public higher ed system, and so that was important to us.”

How AAUP Picked Candidates

In deciding which candidates to back, the association focused primarily on two criteria. First, the AAUP had to have “significant membership” in the state the candidate seeks to represent.

“We don’t want to give empty endorsements,” Wolfson said. “We want to be able to say our members are going out. They’re going to be knocking on doors.”

Then, the AAUP looked at candidates who were already endorsed by a large local AAUP chapter or state conference. Candidates endorsed by American Federation of Teachers state bodies were also in the mix.

Once those criteria were met, AAUP leaders assessed the candidates’ higher ed, labor, public education, research and science platforms, and asked to meet.

“We really felt like we had to have a meeting with the candidate—or, in one or two cases, the lead policy person on the candidate’s staff—[to ask] them very specific questions about higher ed. We had to feel very comfortable that they aligned or closely aligned with our agenda,” Wolfson said.

The AAUP’s political committee then considered candidates who cleared the meeting hurdle, and the national council had the final say.

For the 2026 midterms, the AAUP is playing a bit of catch-up; members didn’t officially OK the association’s political strategy until the biennial meeting in June, where they unanimously backed a resolution that directed the AAUP to “support and participate in coordinated political and public campaigns, including legislative advocacy, mass mobilization, and public education efforts, to resist authoritarian policies at the local, state, and federal levels.” This put the endorsement machine in motion only a few months ahead of Election Day, Wolfson explained.

The AAUP received some criticism in August about its processes after the national office endorsed El-Sayed. Some Michigan members said the meeting where they were polled on the endorsement was not well attended and therefore not representative of the state’s 4,000-some AAUP members. But the poll was only one part of the association’s decision to back El-Sayed, Wolfson said. Local Michigan chapters had already expressed their support for the candidate, as did the AAUP-affiliated AFT.

In future election cycles, the AAUP will conduct a “much more dug-in process with all members in the state” when selecting candidates to endorse, Wolfson said.

Other faculty—AAUP members and not—have criticized the AAUP’s decision to get so directly involved in elections. Wolfson said he’s sympathetic to these views, but remains undeterred.

“I’m sympathetic to … feelings that we want higher education to be the way it was in the past and to be free from this political realm that we’re in. [But] that’s not the world we’re in now,” he said. “Either you’re at the table or you’re on the menu, and it’s time for us to be at the table.”