The Politics of Electric Vehicles Looms Large in Swing States
Donald Trump, politically speaking, is handing Kamala Harris the keys to a shiny new electric vehicle — one that Harris and the Democrats might ride all the way to the White House.
“I will end the electric-vehicle mandate on day one, thereby saving the U.S. auto industry from complete obliteration, which is happening right now,” Trump said near the start of his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. He brought up the subject again toward the end of the speech, nearly 90 minutes later: “By the way, I’m all for electric. They have their application. But if somebody wants to buy a gas-powered car, gasoline-powered car, or a hybrid, they’re going to be able to do it. And we’re going to make that change on day one.”
There is no such thing as an electric-vehicle mandate — only a set of aggressive investments from the Biden-Harris administration that includes buyer tax credits of up to $7,500 per vehicle, as well as $7.5 billion paid to states for a national network of charging stations and $1.7 billion in federal grants to help automakers update, change, or expand factories making electric vehicles.
Harris has been taking credit for that federal spending, often cutting the ribbon on plant expansions. As a candidate in 2019, she floated a plan for $10 trillion in federal investment to transition the U.S. economy to renewable energy by 2045. It’s doubtful she will revive that mega-plan, but her current support for EVs lets her ride a popular wave: Last year, Americans bought a record-high 1.2 million electric vehicles, more than quadruple the number sold in 2019 and now about 8 percent of the U.S. market.
Politically, what matters most is not where those vehicles are bought and used — areas that tend to lean Democratic — but where the cars and trucks are manufactured: mostly in key states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia.
“Interestingly, two-thirds of the Electoral College votes that will pick the president from five swing states are cast by big EV investment states,” says Mike Murphy, who spent years as a top Republican strategist and is now CEO of the EV Politics Project. “There are 30,000 new EV-manufacturing jobs in Michigan, 40,000 in Georgia, and they’re the best-kept secret in our economy now,” he told me.
Murphy is warning Republicans not to ignore the jobs and money going to car building, which are at least as popular as Trump’s vow to end support for EV manufacturing. “GOP Gov. Brian Kemp has avoided joining Republican EV bashing. He understands this is the biggest industrial investment in Georgia history,” Murphy wrote in Politico. “And have no doubt that Michigan’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer will pound the EV jobs issue all year long; Michigan ranks second in new electric vehicle manufacturing investment. Lose Michigan and Georgia, and you are well on the way to losing the presidential race.”
That leaves Trump in an awkward position. Opinion surveys show Republican voters are less enthusiastic about EVs than their Democratic neighbors are, and they get downright turned off by arguments that EV use is good for the environment. “Twenty-seven percent of liberals own or are considering an EV, higher than for any other subgroup,” the Gallup polling organization found earlier this year. “Meanwhile, the seven percent market among conservatives essentially ties with senior citizens as the lowest among subgroups. Conservatives and Republicans are the two groups with the highest percentages saying they wouldn’t consider an EV.”
That might explain Trump’s tendency to bash federal spending on EVs. Attacking the industry also dovetails with Trump’s long-standing calls to charge high tariffs on foreign trade.
“Right now, as we speak, large factories, just started, are being built across the border in Mexico. So, with all the other things happening at our border, and they’re being built by China to make cars and to sell them into our country, no tax, no anything,” he said in his RNC speech. “The United Autoworkers ought to be ashamed for allowing this to happen, and the leader of the United Auto Workers should be fired immediately, and every single autoworker, union and nonunion, should be voting for Donald Trump because we’re going to bring back car manufacturing and we’re going to bring it back fast.”
A fact-check by the Associated Press found no large Chinese car factories being built in Mexico — apparently, Trump made that part up — but it seems clear he’s hoping to repeat the magic of 2016 when he won Michigan by a razor-thin margin of 11,000 votes. Trump lost the state in 2020 by 154,000 votes, but recent polls show the state is in play once again with Harris holding a 1.2-point lead on average.
Back in 2016, Trump managed to snag the votes of many rank-and-file union workers even though their union, the UAW, endorsed Hillary Clinton. This time around, Trump is openly attacking the UAW’s president, Shawn Fain. “You probably have to get rid of this fool, this stupid idiot representing the United Auto Workers,” Trump said at a rally in Grand Rapids in July. (The union recently endorsed Harris, citing, among other things, the fact that she walked a picket line during a 2019 strike.)
A final complication for Trump is his support from Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla. “I’m for electric cars. I have to be because, you know, Elon endorsed me very strongly,” Trump recently told the crowd at a campaign event in Georgia. “So I have no choice.” He then immediately backpedaled by specifying that he backs EVs as only a “small slice” of the auto industry.
It’s a mistake to think a Harris victory — or the trend toward electric vehicles — is predestined or inevitable. A generation ago, President Jimmy Carter famously installed 32 water-heating solar panels on the West Wing of the White House. His successor, Ronald Reagan, had the panels removed; a high-ranking White House official “felt that the equipment was just a joke,” according to one account. More important, Reagan canceled a tax credit that gave homeowners incentives to use solar power.
Whether the U.S. moves forward with an aggressive transition to EVs or lets the initiative stall is one more issue to be settled on November 5.