Article from The Hill by Michael Saltsman.

Is the minimum wage a winning “wedge” issue? The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) certainly thinks so.

Recently, the union announced plans for a massive voter engagement drive for the 2018 election cycle focusing specifically on the Midwest. However, its method of convincing voters to push Democrats into power isn’t revolutionary. The union is attempting to turn the minimum wage into a major election issue — yet again.

Politicos take note: The past two election cycles have shown that the minimum wage doesn’t win majorities. Voters may support minimum wage hikes when polled and not informed of the consequences, but this enthusiasm doesn’t translate into votes for supportive candidates.

In 2014 and 2016, control of the Senate was up for grabs, and there were also heavily-contested gubernatorial races in blue and purple states. Public Policy Polling (PPP), the left-leaning polling group based in Raleigh, N.C., released a memo a few weeks before election day in 2014 that claimed opposition to minimum wage hikes could be a “decisive issue” in six key states: Illinois, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Iowa, Kentucky, and Louisiana. Republican criticism of a minimum wage hike was supposed to reduce their support among voters by as much as 30 points.

Read more of this article at The Hill.

Image Credit: By Fibonacci Blue from Minnesota, USA [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons