Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance spoke at Detroit’s Eastern Market Tuesday, where he criticized the Biden administration’s investments in manufacturing as “table scraps.” More than a dozen people at the event, which drew “about 300” attendees in total, wore T-shirts that said “Auto Workers for Trump 2024,” according to Detroit News reporter Craig Mauger. In conversations during and after Vance’s remarks, however, Mauger discovered that at least six of them were … not actually auto workers.
It’s a small revelation in the grand scheme of election-season scandals, but the optics matter here. Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are battling for the hearts and minds of manufacturing workers in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Harris, for her part, has touted the growth of factory construction and investment under the Biden administration, writing on Tuesday that the creation of manufacturing jobs “will be a priority for my administration.” Trump, meanwhile, has characterized the state of the sector as a “horror show,” in which “our country was stripped of jobs and wealth and our companies were sold off to foreign countries.”
In the midst of all this back-and-forth, the allegiances of Michigan’s nearly 300,000 auto workers have emerged as a particular prize. Harris recently visited a union hall near Ford’s Michigan Assembly plant, and Trump is scheduled to speak at a Detroit Economic Club event tomorrow. During his rally Tuesday, Vance also joked that he is “going to be in Michigan like 30 times.”
Major unions—including the United Auto Workers, which represents thousands of Detroit-area workers—have already endorsed Harris. The union’s internal polling also shows that “most of its members support Democratic candidates,” The Washington Post reported.
Still, Republicans have made significant inroads with working-class and union voters. And at least one high-profile Republican in Michigan defended the faux autoworkers in Detroit. “Fascinating reporting!” wrote Meshawn Maddock, a former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, in a response to Mauger’s story on X. “I’ve worn a Blacks For Trump t-shirt a couple of times myself, I’m not black. I’ve got a Log Cabin Republicans sign in my house, I’m not gay.”
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