In this election year, Vice President Harris frequently holds rallies in union halls in Michigan, standing shoulder to shoulder with the state’s most influential union leaders, while former President Trump has launched a counterattack from rural steel plants, urging middle-class workers to believe that he is their true defender of interests.
The two presidential candidates are competing in the blue wall states, where the union base is strong and Democratic victories have been consistent in past presidential elections from 1992 to 2012. They are presenting their views to workers in starkly contrasting ways. This contrast is particularly evident in Michigan, where both candidates are vying for worker support, and unions are facing unprecedented difficult decisions.
The President has described Michigan as the “holy land” of unions and warned that the American dream is in a critical state. He emphasized the importance of unions in protecting American workers’ dreams.
Harris plans to meet with union workers again in Michigan, hoping that her vision will resonate widely with the help and support of union leaders like Fain, extending beyond just union households.
Her campaign is increasingly focusing on gaining support from male voters in blue wall states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, hoping that union leaders in these states can help mobilize voters as the political landscape shifts with the rapidly changing economy.
Recently, Harris failed to secure support from two key unions, the IAFF and IBT, both of which had previously supported President Biden in 2020, who branded himself as the most labor-friendly president in American history.
In contrast to other unions, the IBT historically has not strongly supported the Democratic Party, having backed Republican presidents like Nixon and Reagan. Some state-level unions have also diverged from the national leadership, with only the IBT in Michigan and a major firefighters’ union in California supporting Harris.
Any rift within the labor movement could be detrimental to the Democratic Party, which has been striving to regain the status of unions as a core source of its power at the polls.
Political strategist Hemond analyzed that unions are not limited to union workers only as most people in Michigan have family or close friends working in unions.
Trump, rather than complaining about lack of union support, asserted that this indicated ordinary workers supported his vision for the country.
Many communities in the Midwest that were once at the core of the labor movement have shifted rightward in recent decades, responding to economic issues like deindustrialization and trade barriers.
Michigan, being home to the Big Three automakers and the largest concentration of UAW workers, has been a focal point of the election campaign. Trump has sought to paint Harris as a proponent of mandates for transitioning to electric vehicles and certain trade policies, criticizing these for shifting jobs overseas to garner more votes.
Trump has aimed to separate union workers from their leaders, calling Fain a “stupid idiot” and praising Tesla’s CEO for firing striking workers.
The blue wall states rejected the Democratic Party in 2016 for the first time in decades, but in 2020, Biden narrowly won, with strong support from union voters who have historically been a Democratic voting machine in the Midwest. However, the 2020 election differed in many key aspects from previous Democratic victories.
In 2020, Trump secured a narrow lead among white voters in Michigan, with his vote share varying by education, occupation, and income levels. According to AP VoteCast, Trump won nearly two-thirds of white voters without a college education in Michigan, while Biden and Trump were nearly tied among college-educated white voters.
Among non-white voters in Michigan, Biden won 80% of the vote, with non-white voters comprising 16% of the electorate in the state. Signs of alliance fractures have emerged recently, particularly among Arab Americans in the Detroit metropolitan area, with many likely to withdraw their support for the Democratic Party due to the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Trump’s campaign aims to increase support among white and non-white working-class workers in Michigan who lack college education to partially offset the anticipated losses among college-educated white voters. Since the 2020 election loss and subsequent failed efforts to overturn results in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and other swing states, Trump’s support among these voters has significantly declined.
A former UAW spokesperson noted that the Democratic Party’s challenges in attracting some white male blue-collar voters do not lie within the unions themselves, as the circumstances of union members’ children or relatives are beyond control.
Harris hopes to win these voters by emphasizing how unions benefit all workers. At a Labor Day event in Detroit, she stressed the importance of unions in securing benefits like a five-day workweek, paid sick leave, and holidays, attributing these improvements to union members’ efforts.
After negotiating new contracts for workers from Ford, GM, and Stellantis through the UAW, Fain is investing most of his political capital, and possibly his future, in supporting Harris. He believes that the UAW’s support for Democratic presidential candidates has been stable at around 60% of the membership in recent elections.
During the Biden administration, the number of union petitions for strikes doubled. In late 2023, during the auto workers’ strike, Biden visited Michigan, becoming the first president to join a strike march. The next day, Trump visited Michigan, appearing at a non-union factory, fiercely criticizing Biden’s push for electric vehicles and telling workers, “Get your union leaders to support me, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
Union leaders have asserted that Trump’s first term was detrimental to workers, citing adverse rulings from the NLRB and the Supreme Court, as well as unfulfilled promises in the auto industry. They highlighted the achievements of the Democratic Party in states like Michigan, including the recent repeal of the Right to Work law enacted over a decade ago by a Republican-controlled legislature.
With declining union membership in states like Michigan, ensuring Harris’ victory requires more than just attracting union members. If Fain, as the UAW chairman, cannot help Harris win Michigan despite his considerable efforts, the political influence of his union in future elections will be called into question.
Fain urged Michigan voters, “We are at a moment where we decide the fate of a generation, and this election will determine our future.”
(This article references reporting from the AP)