Trump and Republicans’ Strategy for Winning Over UAW Households

TFD – Discover how Trump and Republicans are navigating Michigan’s political landscape, aiming to secure support from UAW households amidst shifting dynamics in the auto industry.

The Republican presidential contest and this pivotal 2024 battleground have changed significantly since the former president Donald Trump’s previous visit to Michigan around five months ago. He comes to Michigan on Saturday.

Then, Trump swooped in for a rally centered around the auto industry’s striking workforce while avoiding his rivals for the GOP nomination, who were gathered in California for the second primary debate. A 2020 election denier’s tumultuous reign atop the Michigan Republican Party had only recently begun. And many were still guessing how Trump’s mounting legal troubles would play out during a presidential race.

Since then, the strike has ended and President Joe Biden has received the endorsement of United Auto Workers, the leading union representing autoworkers in Michigan. All Republicans on the California debate stage have withdrew, with the exception of Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina. And in the midst of a sharp power struggle this week, the Michigan GOP elected new leaders.

In addition, Trump will be speaking to supporters for the first time since two decisions in unrelated New York court cases involving the former president brought attention to the legal dangers he faces. This is just another example of how Trump is juggling his busy court calendar with his campaign schedule.

A New York state judge ruled Thursday that a trial to determine whether Trump falsified business documents to conceal hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels will begin on March 25. Twenty-four hours later, another judge ordered Trump and his companies to pay nearly $355 million for fraudulently inflating his financial statements for a decade.

Trump criticized the judge who assessed the financial burden on his Truth Social platform, labeling Friday’s decision as “a Complete and Total SHAM.”

Meanwhile, dramatic testimony this week regarding the intimate relationship of two top prosecutors in a hearing to resolve allegations of self-dealing has shook the destiny of an election subversion case in Georgia against Trump and 14 of his friends.

These are the dynamics swirling around Trump’s planned rally in Waterford Township, a Republican-leaning community in the outer Detroit suburbs where he twice won about 53% of the vote. But in Waterford, where he won the state by nearly three points, Biden outperformed Hillary Clinton in 2016, just as he did in many other sections of the state.

This week, Fox News conducted a study of Michigan residents who are registered to vote, and the results showed that there was no clear favorite between Trump (47%) and Biden (45%).

Trump’s trip to Michigan is scheduled ten days prior to the state’s Republican primary. It comes after his appearance at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia earlier on Saturday. The race in the Wolverine State concludes February before the GOP primary spreads to almost two dozen states in March.

According to a person familiar with Trump’s plans, he is not currently anticipated to return to the state prior to the primary, CNN said. Haley hasn’t yet made an appearance in Michigan, where Trump is the clear favorite, as she is too preoccupied with pulling together a great showing in front of her own state’s primary on February 24.

Although Trump has made fun of Haley’s husband, an officer in the South Carolina Army National Guard who is serving overseas, during his recent visits to South Carolina, it is unclear if he will target Biden or her when campaigning in Michigan.

Unrest within state parties

Ahead of his visit, Trump and his allies sought to put an end to turmoil within the Michigan Republican Party, which has faced a reckoning over its readiness for the 2024 election.

The state party ousted its chair, Kristina Karamo, last month in the face of internal strife and lackluster fundraising. Karamo, an unsuccessful 2022 candidate for secretary of state who spread baseless claims about fraud in the 2020 election, had served as party chair for less than a year. She claimed the vote to oust her was illegitimate and attempted to retain control.

Pete Hoekstra, the US ambassador to the Netherlands under President Trump and a former congressman, was approved by a body within the Republican National Committee on Wednesday to lead the Michigan GOP. In a social media post on January 26, Trump had endorsed Hoekstra.

Organizational efforts are in jeopardy due to the unrest, which coincides with Michigan’s predicted leadership in the 2024 election. Republicans have a chance to win the Senate seat that retiring Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow is leaving open in addition to a fierce campaign for the presidency and a few close House races.

“I don’t believe there is a presidential route that does not involve winning Michigan. It’s ground zero,” said Jason Cabel Roe, a longtime Republican strategist and former head of the Michigan GOP. “This place offers a plethora of opportunities. Unfortunately, it’s also ground zero for the dysfunction of the Republican Party.”

According to two senior advisors who spoke with CNN, Trump’s team agrees with the sentiment and intends to expand a strong campaign presence in the state in the upcoming months.

A play for the union vote

Trump faces more obstacles in Michigan than just intraparty strife. Thus far, there has been a mixed response to his attempts to win over union households, which are a significant constituency in the state.

When Trump visited a nonunion factory in September amid the autoworker strike, he courted blue-collar workers by pledging to undo Biden-era policies that supported the auto industry’s shift to electric vehicles, claiming that doing so would jeopardize American jobs. In an attempt to win over Big Labor, he also asked his audience to do him a favor by getting their union officials to support him. And I’ll take care of the rest.”

Last month, the United Auto Workers endorsed Biden, who became the first president to join a picket line when he appeared with striking workers in Michigan the day before Trump’s visit.

Trump, who has encouraged union workers not to pay their dues, responded by calling UAW President Shawn Fain “a weapon of mass destruction” for autoworkers.

“Get rid of this dope & vote for DJT,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform at the time, referring to himself by his initials.

In answer, Fain declared that he didn’t “care what Donald Trump says about me.”

“I care about facts,” Fain said. “And the facts are very clear for the large majority of Americans: The working-class people have been left behind by Trump’s billionaire class, the billionaire buddies, and the economy only works for the wealthy.”

Last month, Trump met with Teamsters union leaders and members in Washington, DC. The round table discussion at the Teamsters’ headquarters touched off some angry dissent inside the union, with one executive board member denouncing Trump as “a known union buster, scab, and insurrectionist.”

But Trump’s campaign believes it can drive a wedge between Biden and organized labor. It has made appealing to union members a key part of its strategy to win over working-class voters, especially in battleground Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – all three of which broke for Biden in the 2020 election after backing Trump four years earlier.

Trump’s share of the vote of union households fell from 48 percent in 2016 to 37 percent in 2020, according to CNN exit polls. The recent Fox News survey from Michigan found Biden leading Trump 53% to 41% among union households. Regaining that support could prove key to turning Michigan red again in 2024.

But criticizing Fain just after Michigan autoworkers won a significant labor win could undermine their efforts, according to Cabel Roe.

“There’s still real opportunities for Trump and Republicans with UAW households, but I don’t think you can ignore that Fain was successful in extracting concessions from the Big Three (automakers) and his pugilistic style won him some fans,” he said. “And you have to give him credit for the victory.”