Trump's attacks on electric vehicles hit home with some Michigan voters

A longtime resident of Detroit's northern suburbs of Warren, Michigan, Doug spends part of his day building electric vehicles for Ford as a mechanic.

But he would never buy one.

Doug, a former Democrat and unionized auto worker who declined to give his name for fear of union pushback, is exactly the type of Michigan voter Donald Trump is trying to win over and Kamala Harris is trying to win back.

Less than a month before Election Day, the former president stoked fears in the state that Harris wanted to ban gas-powered vehicles and that auto workers could lose their jobs as cars electrify. The news was met with great interest by Doug and several other Michigan voters who spoke to the BBC.

“It certainly could cost us jobs and has already cost a lot of people their jobs,” Doug told the BBC on a sunny October day outside a Meijer supermarket in Warren.

Harris rejected Trump's rhetoric, telling voters at a rally in Flint, Michigan last week that her administration would not end gas-powered vehicles. The vice president supported phasing out gas cars when she ran for president in 2019, but has since changed her support for the policy.

“Michigan, let's be clear,” she said in Flint, “contrary to what my opponent suggests, I will never tell you what car to drive.”

Experts say Trump's criticism of electric vehicles pertains to his broader economic message from Michigan as he tries to attract voters in a key Midwestern swing state.

Speaking to hundreds of attendees at a Detroit Economic Club event on Thursday, the former president doubled down on his message, claiming that United Automobile Workers President Shawn Fain wanted “all electric cars,” which Trump said cost the auto industry “all the business.”

“This has become the main Republican message: that plans or hopes for vehicle electrification will destroy the auto industry and take jobs,” said Jonathan Hanson, a lecturer at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

Harris' challenges to that message have failed to resonate with some Michigan voters who still believe Trump's claim that Harris wants a country of all-electric vehicles.

“I don't trust them,” Ruth Zimmer, 82, a Warren resident, said of electric cars. “I want it to be like it always was, with a good, old-fashioned car.”

On Friday in Michigan, Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, tried to appeal to people skeptical of electric vehicles by taking aim at Trump's claims about mandates.

“It should just be your choice. We need to make these choices affordable and accessible to people,” he said. “No one is ordering you to do anything. If, like me, you want to drive a 1979 International Harvester Scout that's pretty darn sweet… go for it.”

Walz and Trump's visits to the state come after recent polls suggest Harris' support may decline slightly in the key battleground state. A September Quinnipiac University poll showed Trump with a three-point lead in Michigan, after other polls suggested Harris was leading by a slim margin for the past month.

Trump's attacks on electric vehicles are also complicated by one of his biggest supporters, billionaire Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, an electric car company. Musk has endorsed Trump and appeared at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last week, cheering him on from behind the podium.

Appealing to the state's car population and union workers – once a bloc of staunch Democrats – will prove key for Harris and Trump to narrowing their lead in Michigan, experts say.

Trump won over a number of voters in the state in his 2016 race against Hillary Clinton, although President Joe Biden won some of their votes in 2020. Statewide, Clinton won 51% of union households compared to Trump's 42%, in a race which she lost in Michigan by about 10,000 votes. According to 2020 exit polls, Biden won the support of union households by 56% to 40%.

Some former Democratic union workers in Michigan have become disillusioned with the party as the cost of living increases. Doug, a Warren resident, said he was discouraged by pressure from union leadership to stay aligned with Democrats.

“You have to be a Democrat or you will be completely banned,” Doug said.

Harris, he added, is simply President Joe Biden “in a nutshell.” “

The vice president is having more difficulty winning votes from Labor than Biden, who considered himself the most pro-union president in history. While Harris and Walz have key support from workers, they have struggled to gain support from rank-and-file union members.

For the first time in three decades, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters – the nation's largest union – has declined to endorse a presidential candidate, saying that the majority of its rank-and-file members support Trump.

In Michigan, where the auto and transportation industries employ 20% of the workforce, Democrats aren't getting the credit they expected for investing in electric vehicles in the state, said Matt Grossmann, a politics professor at Michigan State University.

This year, the Biden-Harris administration announced a $1.7 billion (£1.3 billion) investment to transform closed and struggling car plants in Michigan and several other Midwestern states to produce electric vehicles and parts their supply chain.

“A lot of people in the auto industry and the automotive industry don't necessarily think it would be beneficial to Michigan,” Grossmann said.

Automakers appear to generally support switching their fleets to more electric vehicles, Hanson said, but the transition is expensive and requires additional investment in factories that produce special materials such as batteries.

As part of a nearly $2 billion federal investment, the General Motors plant in Lansing, Michigan, received $500 million to shift production from gasoline to electric vehicles.

In Detroit, just two days before Trump's arrival, his Republican running mate J.D. Vance called the Lansing investment “leftovers on the table” compared to the job losses he argued would be on the horizon with the shift to electric vehicles.

Kevin Moore, president of the Michigan Teamsters Union, called Trump's electric vehicle, and Vance says it's a “bold lie.”

“They are not going to get rid of combustible gas vehicles,” he told the BBC. “They may agree.”

His group and several Teamsters unions in swing states endorsed Harris for president.

Moore said he believes Michigan workers won't buy Trump's claims that electrification will cost auto workers their jobs.

“They are smart,” he said of auto workers. “Donald Trump was a billionaire fed with a golden spoon. (Harris) lived in middle-class America.