Unofficial tallies show Teamsters President James P. Hoffa winning his bid for re-election by a more than two-to-one margin.

In a light turnout, with 43 percent of the votes counted, Hoffa had 68 percent of the votes, compared to 32 percent for opponent Tom Leedham.
Only an estimated 348,080 of the mail-in ballots that were sent to Teamsters union members were returned by Tuesday’s deadline, according to Reuters. That compares to 367,000 in the last election in 1998, and 464,000 in 1996.
As early as Wednesday evening, the Hoffa campaign was predicting a rout, but the Leedham campaign cautioned that the race was not yet over. Early counts were for the union’s eastern region, where Hoffa’s support is strong. Supporters of Leedham, who is from Oregon, hoped to do better in the other regions. Hoffa outspent his opponent in the campaign by more than $1.6 million, according to Bloomberg.
The winner will have to bargain a new master freight agreement with the nation’s major LTL companies and a new contract with the union’s largest employer, United Parcel Service.