President Joe Biden’s visit to the Detroit suburbs last Tuesday was about so much more than a show of support for striking auto workers.
It was history in action: the first time a sitting American president joined a picket line. It was also an attempt by a struggling Democratic president with a personal story focused on working-class values to woo a key voting bloc. And it was essentially the launch of the 2024 general election campaign.
Why we wrote this
Back-to-back appearances with autoworkers in Michigan by President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump underscore the importance of working-class voters in the Midwest at a time when unions are exerting their influence.
Former President Donald Trump, President Biden’s likely 2024 opponent, will skip the Republican primary debate on Wednesday night and deliver a prime-time speech to current and former union members in Detroit.
For Biden, his trip reflects a larger Democratic effort to shore up support among working-class voters, who have been moving toward the Republican Party in recent years. Mr. Trump’s populist stance was key to winning the crucial battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2016 — all states that Mr. Biden then took back in 2020. Now both he and Mr. Trump are at an impasse in the 2024 polls – start early.
“The Union’s support for Democrats has not been monolithic, and this is the latest iteration of that struggle,” said Michael Traugott, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
President Joe Biden’s visit to the Detroit suburbs last Tuesday was about so much more than a show of support for striking auto workers.
It was history in action: the first time a sitting American president joined a picket line. It was also an attempt by a struggling Democratic president with a personal story focused on working-class values to woo a key voting bloc. And it was essentially the launch of the 2024 general election campaign.
Former President Donald Trump, President Biden’s likely 2024 opponent, will skip the Republican primary debate on Wednesday night and deliver a prime-time speech to current and former union members in Detroit. The Trump campaign called Mr. Biden’s appearance “nothing more than a cheap shot.” The White House responded by noting that Mr. Biden had been personally invited by the president of the autoworkers union.
Why we wrote this
Back-to-back appearances with autoworkers in Michigan by President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump underscore the importance of working-class voters in the Midwest at a time when unions are exerting their influence.
“Stick with it. You deserve a significant raise and other benefits,” Mr. Biden told the picketers.
For Mr. Biden, his trip reflects a larger Democratic effort to shore up support among working-class voters, who have shifted to the Republican Party in recent years over both cultural and economic issues and distrust of elites. Mr. Trump’s populist stance was key to winning the crucial battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2016 — all states that Mr. Biden then took back in 2020. Now both he and Mr. Trump are at an impasse in the 2024 polls – start early.
“The Union’s support for Democrats has not been monolithic, and this is the latest iteration of that struggle,” said Michael Traugott, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “There is a lot of economic fear that stems in part from growing income inequality among the American population.”
Workers protesting against the three major US automakers – General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – are demanding a 40% pay increase and full-time pay for a 32-hour work week. Mr. Biden has made statements of support for the United Auto Workers union but avoided commenting on specific demands. The UAW has yet to make an endorsement in the 2024 presidential race, but Mr. Biden has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO and 17 other unions.
The strike — which expanded last week to additional GM and Stellantis plants, but not Ford, amid signs of progress in talks with that company — threatens to damage the U.S. economy at a vulnerable time. And that’s why Mr. Biden’s appearance on the picket line on Tuesday is risky: If the strikes drag on and become unpopular, he owns them. Mr. Biden has pushed hard for electric cars, including financial incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, but autoworkers worry about job security. Fewer workers are needed to build electric cars, and there is no guarantee they will be produced in union shops.
Mr. Trump has done that criticized the UAW leadership, say their union is heading towards obsolescence as most electric cars will soon be built in China. “The auto workers are being sold out on their leadership,” he said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Unlike Mr. Biden, the former president will not join a picket line on Wednesday, but will instead speak to about 500 workers at a non-union auto parts manufacturer in Macomb County, near Detroit. Mr. Trump’s speech was announced before Mr. Biden’s plan to come to Detroit.
“Joe Biden has been forced to join the picket line … due to the fact that Trump essentially drew his card,” said Rocky Raczkowski, chairman of the Republican Party of Oakland County in suburban Detroit.
Mr. Raczkowski, like Mr. Trump, argues that union leaders have failed workers by joining Democrats and their climate agenda, including the transition to electric cars, while foreign companies increase their market share. “The corporate bosses of these companies are in favor of democratic leaders and democratic leadership and they don’t fight back,” he says.
As the 2024 campaign progresses, Trump’s policies toward union workers are also likely to gain more attention.
“Trump talks a lot about his solidarity and plays on the anger of certain groups,” said Peter Berg, a professor of labor relations at Michigan State University. “But if you look at what he’s actually doing in his policies, it’s pretty mainstream conservative.”
Trump’s appointees to the National Labor Relations Board were not particularly union-friendly, Professor Berg notes. The Trump NRLB took steps to limit workers’ rights to organize in certain workplaces and made it easier for workplaces to get rid of existing unions and classify workers as independent contractors.
“Trump has led probably the most virulently anti-union administration we have seen in decades,” said Democratic strategist Steve Rosenthal, a former political director of the AFL-CIO. He also characterizes Trump’s Supreme Court appointees as hostile to labor.
On the other hand, some of Trump’s trade actions — such as imposing tough tariffs on certain imports and renegotiating trade deals — drew praise from union leaders.
Mr. Biden’s record on labor includes strong support for unions and the right to collective bargaining, and his appointees at the NLRB have worked to undo some of the Trump administration’s policies to make. In his first two years as president, he passed numerous bills through Congress that would create jobs, including massive investments in the climate, infrastructure and semiconductor production. Mr. Biden is also proudly promoting a bill that would restore the pensions of more than a million people who were underfunded.
This week’s showdown in Detroit harks back to the 2016 election, when Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton crushed pro-union households and lost to Mr. Trump.
“She didn’t make the traditional stops, didn’t visit union halls or factories in Michigan or steel mills in Pennsylvania,” Mr. Rosenthal says. “She essentially said to the union workers, this election is not about you, and it showed.”
In that election, Mrs. Clinton won Michigan’s union households by 53% to 40%, according to exit polls — a smaller margin than Democratic nominees have typically received. In 2020, Mr. Biden won the union vote in Michigan by 62%-37%. The other two “blue wall” states, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, showed similar swings for the Democratic ticket among union members in 2020.
Biden must continue to reassure working-class voters on economic issues even as some disagree with him on cultural issues such as gun rights, Democratic strategists say.
“Workers have felt like they’ve been screwed for 40 years, that no one was paying attention to them, that the establishment of both parties wasn’t looking out for them, and there’s been a lot of bitterness about that,” said Mike Lux, a Democratic consultant who worked with trade unions.
“Trump was the ultimate anti-establishment guy – the anti-Republican Party establishment and the anti-Democratic Party establishment – and some people saw him as someone who would shake things up,” Mr. Lux added.
A key voting bloc in the 2024 race will be non-white voters who have dropped out of college — a group that includes many UAW workers.
When he was re-elected in 2012, President Barack Obama won non-white working-class voters by a margin of 67 points. Last week is one New York Times/Siena Survey showed Mr. Biden’s lead over Mr. Trump within that cohort at a much smaller 49%-33%. Third-party candidates and voters choosing to stay home are other things of concern to Democrats, whose likely candidate is not generating as much enthusiasm among base voters as Mr. Trump.
Staff writer Sophie Hills contributed to this report.