OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former President Donald Trump has a slight lead over President Joe Biden in the all-important state of Michigan, home to many of the country’s autoworkers who have voiced opposition to the current administration’s electric vehicle push.
According to a Mitchell-MIRS Poll of Michigan released Friday, Trump leads Biden 47-44.
“When the trial ballot includes a race among five candidates, Trump leads Biden 44% to 42%, with independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in third place at 6%. Both Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein and independent Cornel West garnered 1% of the vote in the survey,” Newsmax reported.
Per the outlet, here are additional poll findings:
–Among Republicans, Trump has 90% support, while only 2% of those in the GOP back Biden. The president’s support from his fellow Democrats is not as strong, at 84%, while 12% prefer Trump.
–Among women, Biden has a 51% to 40% advantage; among men, Trump leads by a wider margin of 54% to 37%.
–Trump holds a 54% to 36% lead among those under 44-year-olds and also has a 50% to 39% advantage over those voters between 45 and 64 years old.
–Among white voters, Trump leads 47% to 44%. Biden has the advantage among Black voters by 58% to 33%. Among those who are neither white nor Black, Trump holds a 61% to 27% lead.
Trump’s increasing appeal to blue-collar workers will likely be put to the test in Michigan this year, home to the country’s auto industry.
In January, just days after United Auto Workers union President Shawn Fain said the organization was formally endorsing Biden’s reelection, he dropped a bombshell during a live Fox News interview about the preferred candidate for most members.
He appeared to suggest it would be Trump.
After Fain fielded some questions about the slumping sales of electric vehicles and how that could affect the union labor force moving forward, host Neil Cavuto noted that in past decades, sizeable numbers of UAW members supported President Ronald Reagan and his successor, President George H. W. Bush, as well as other Republican presidents through the years.
Cavuto then went on to point out that many UAW members were supportive of Trump in 2016 and 2020 and remain supportive of him now before asking Fain how he felt about that.
“Look, it’s democracy in action,” the UAW boss began. “Let me be clear about this: A great majority of our members will not vote for President Biden. Yeah, some will, but that’s the reality of this. The majority of our members are gonna vote their paychecks. They’re gonna vote for an economy that works for them.”
While Fain did not say that the “great majority” would be voting for Trump, that was the impression he gave since Cavuto had just mentioned past UAW rank-and-file support for previous Republican presidents.
🚨Massive UAW labor union boss TURNS on Biden LIVE on Fox News, forced to admit a majority of workers will be voting TRUMP:
"A great majority of our members will not vote for President Biden…the majority of our members are going to vote their paychecks." pic.twitter.com/ydKJWZB6Wv
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 25, 2024
Trump has been warning American autoworkers that Biden’s EV push will not only benefit China because that’s where most batteries for EVs are produced but will also lead to mass layoffs in the industry because fewer workers are needed to build and maintain electric vehicles.
Over the past few decades, political scientists and other experts have noted a shift in voting demographics between Democrats and Republicans, with the latter gaining much more support from the American working class, which had, for the better part of the 20th century, gone overwhelmingly for Democrats.
“The same pattern of Republican domination of the working-class vote appears to be developing as we move toward 2024,” notes the Liberal Patriot. “The latest poll for which an overall college/noncollege split is available is the March Harvard/Harris poll. That poll, in which Trump has a small lead over Biden in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, has Trump carrying the working-class vote by 10 points.
“In a DeSantis-Biden matchup, DeSantis has a similar lead over Biden and an identical 10-point advantage among working-class voters. (There is a slightly more recent Quinnipiac poll that also includes these 2024 matchups, but the public materials only provide a white college/noncollege split). Earlier polls from this year—where data are available—replicate this pattern of Trump and DeSantis leading Biden among working-class voters,” the site noted further.
