A new survey of public company audit firms reveals businesses are concerned the upcoming election could affect their financial performance.

The Center for Audit Quality found more than 60% of roughly 1,200 audit partners surveyed worry about potential disruptions.

Julie Bell Lindsay, CEO of the center, said few companies are adjusting their business strategies.

"It suggests that while businesses expect some market turbulence and some uncertainty, they feel equipped to navigate through that," Lindsay explained.

Delta Air Lines recently said election-related uncertainty would affect its fourth-quarter revenue as consumers hold off on discretionary spending. Lindsay added geopolitical concerns also remain a top risk factor for businesses, as conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East continue to affect the global economy.

Despite ongoing resilience, audit partners' outlook for the economy over the next year is only neutral, with most believing a recession is likely on the horizon. Lindsay noted audit partners are watching for potential indicators, including recent federal rate cuts, a possible government shutdown and a fluctuating labor market.

"They also continue to see that inflation could be an ongoing concern over the next twelve months," Lindsay reported. "I will say that the audit partners in our surveys have been pretty accurately predicting what inflation is going to do."

Lindsay emphasized top priorities for businesses in 2025 remain cost management, improved financial performance and growth. She said labor shortages are no longer a priority among economic risks as employers seek to upskill workers and increase compensation. Still, layoffs and decreasing workplace flexibility remain top strategies for companies to improve their bottom line.


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Since 2021, union elections in Maryland and across the country have more than doubled - and union election wins are at a 15-year high.

But President Donald Trump's administration is seen as taking action to weaken labor laws.

The National Labor Relations Board, which rules on labor practices and elections, was one target. Just days into his term, Trump fired its head, Gwynne Wilcox, a Biden appointee.

Margaret Poydock, a senior policy analyst with the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute, said this doesn't bode well for organized labor.

"There will still be organizing, but unions and workers may be hesitant to bring cases to the NLRB," said Poydock. "President Trump has made it clear that he expects members to rule in favor of employers."

A federal judge ruled earlier this month that Wilcox must be reinstated at the NLRB, but Trump administration attorneys appealed the decision.

Despite the stance of the Trump administration, unions remain extremely popular among the general public. A Gallup poll in 2024 found that 70% of Americans view unions favorably.

That's up from a low of 48% in 2009. Poydock said support for unions from the general public - even those who don't belong to a union - is key to keeping momentum strong.

"Public solidarity helps support unions, when they're trying to win a union contract or when their employer violates labor law," said Poydock. "So public support is key in the mix of union organizing right now."

In 2024, Maryland workers held 54 union elections. Notably, workers at a string of marijuana dispensaries voted to unionize.




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Professors on college campuses across the country are unionizing at increasingly higher rates and a bill in the Maryland General Assembly may help the efforts at state universities.

The legislation would give faculty at Morgan State University, St. Mary's College of Maryland, and faculty in the University of Maryland system the right to form a union. Another bill would also offer collective bargaining rights to graduate assistants at Maryland universities.

Del. Linda Foley, D-Montgomery, said the legislation would give teachers at each university the freedom to decide.

"If they desire and they vote for a union representative to represent them, then they can bargain a contract with their employer," Foley explained.

The bill includes full-time or part-time faculty, and those who are either on tenure or non-tenure tracks. Foley added faculty at Maryland community colleges are already able to organize unions.

Since 2012, the number of unionized faculty across the country has grown more than 7%, with more than a quarter of all faculty belonging to a union. More than 80% of unionized college faculty members are nontenured. Foley, a former vice president of the Communications Workers of America, said despite perceptions, unions are not just for blue collar workers.

"Just because they're not doing manual labor or you know working in a sweatshop so to speak, doesn't mean that workers don't have rights to collective bargaining or that collective bargaining isn't meaningful," Foley emphasized. "It certainly is, because there are many, many issues that collective bargaining can address."

She added workers could benefit from negotiating with an employer about hours, wages and working conditions which would otherwise be more difficult without a union.


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Consumer advocates in Virginia and around the country are trying to chart a new path forward as a federal consumer rights watchdog is being effectively "defanged."

In February, dozens of probationary employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were fired.

Between 2021 and 2025, the bureau gave $9.4 billion back to consumers but the Trump administration has pulled the agency off numerous consumer protection lawsuits, including against major bank Capital One for allegedly cheating millions of customers out of $2 billion in interest.

Jay Speer, consumer rights attorney and executive director of the Virginia Poverty Law Center, said consumers will feel the brunt of the decisions.

"People not going to get all this money back that they should be getting from these wrongdoers," Speer pointed out. "Basically, it's a message to big companies that they can do whatever they want. Nobody's going to stop them, so abuse of consumers is just going to get worse. There's no question about it."

Russell Vought, Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget, has posted on social media the bureau is "woke" and weaponized.

Advocates are putting up a fight. Speer pointed out his organization has joined a lawsuit to stop the bureau's closure. He argued administration efforts to disband the agency break the law and cut into Congress' power to create new federal agencies.

"Congress established this," Speer stressed. "It's not up to the executive branch to just do away with it by some executive order or whatever they claim they have the authority to do it. That's not right."

Conservatives called for the bureau's closure in Project 2025, which Vought helped author.