By ELIZA COLLINS 01/07/16 11:30 AM EST

The head of the Service Employees International Union is worried about what Donald Trump is stirring up in her 2.1 million members, because she thinks he can win.

In an interview with David Axelrod out Thursday, Mary Kay Henry said her organization is going into “hyperdrive” to stand up against Trump because she sees him as a real threat.

Henry compared Trump to former California Gov. Pete Wilson who supported Proposition 226, a measure strongly opposed by unions that would have required them to get approval from individual members to spend their dues on political campaigns.

“This ad that Trump released today is horrific in my mind and reminds me of Pete Wilson in California on Proposition 226,” Henry said, likely referring to Trump's first TV ad talking about building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and a proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

"But Pete Wilson won,” Axelrod said.

"I know. I know. That’s why I think this is a very dangerous political moment in our country,” Henry said. She added that she thinks Trump appeals to some of her members because of the “terrible anxiety” some people in the working class are experiencing.

“I think he’s touching this vein of the terrible anxiety that working-class people feel about their current status, but more importantly, how terrified they are for their kids not being able to do as well as they have, never mind doing better,” Henry said. “ You know, so that broken sense of the future and that emotion having an easier appeal to fear than to what’s possible is what we found is why — we’re doing one-on-ones with every one of our members right now in this period because 64 percent of our public members identify as conservative and are much more interested in the Republican debate than the Democratic debate at this moment.”


http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...y-henry-217445