Michigan is ground zero in the battle over electric vehicle mandates this November, and polling obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter shows that a mandate for consumers to purchase electric vehicles is unpopular among likely general election voters in a House district described by strategists as “pivotal” to both parties’ efforts to win the Great Lakes State’s electoral votes and open Senate race.
When respondents were asked “do you support or oppose the federal government requiring all citizens who operate motor vehicles to purchase electric vehicles,” only 1 percent “strongly support” such a move, and 7 percent would “somewhat support it.” In contrast, 8 percent “somewhat oppose” it, and 77 percent “strongly oppose it.” The poll’s margin of error is 4.9 percent, suggesting that support for the policy could actually be as low as 3 percent.
Rep. John James (R., Mich.) worked with Rep. Steve Scalise (R., La.), the House GOP’s Majority Leader, and Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) to introduce a Congressional Review Act resolution to push back on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rule that James calls a “de-facto electric vehicle mandate that will put all 77,580 manufacturing jobs in [my district] at great risk of extinction.” Several House Democrats are expected to vote for James’s measure.
House Republicans want to get “rid of President Biden and Kamala Harris’s mandate through the EPA that in essence would kill the fossil fuel car industry and go to all these EVs that nobody who wants to buy,” Scalise told the Reporter, touting James’s upcoming measure.
Auto manufacturing is both core to Michigan’s identity as a state and one of the state’s most crucial employers. For years, auto manufacturers have grappled with how to respond to the electric vehicle push by the Biden administration. Last month, Stellantis, which manufactures Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge vehicles, announced it was laying off almost 3,000 employees, and workers blamed EVs for both having less demand than traditional cars, and for requiring less human labor to manufacture them.
While the United Auto Workers (UAW) union endorsed Kamala Harris for president, many of its rank-and-file members are fleeing the Democratic Party. One UAW member told the New York Post that UAW leadership backing Democrats is “slit[ting] our throats.” On the campaign trail, James is running ads highlighting remarks made by his Democratic opponent, Carl Marlinga, who called auto manufacturing a “dying industry.”
Aric Nesbitt, the Michigan Senate Republican Leader, told the Reporter that “EV mandates will cost Michigan auto workers their jobs and price consumers out of cars. The only people who benefit are radical progressives who get to pat themselves on the back and the Chinese battery companies who get to rake in all the money.”
Throughout the state, lawmakers are seeing that EV mandates are some of the most unpopular proposals in their districts. Rep. Tim Walberg (R., Mich.), who is a leading contender to chair the House’s Education and Workforce Committee next Congress, told the Reporter that “across southern Michigan, few issues are as unpopular as the Biden-Harris EV mandates that continue to be pushed. Michiganders do not want automakers forced into making EVs, but rather want to have the choice to buy whatever car suits them best. The auto industry’s future should be forged through innovation in Michigan, not by edicts from bureaucrats in Washington.”
Last year, the House passed Walberg’s CARS Act that would “prevent the EPA from implementing future vehicle emissions regulations that would mandate certain technologies or limit the availability of vehicles based on engine type” on a bipartisan basis.
Michigan is also home to a controversial electric vehicle battery company, called Gotion, whose ties to the Chinese Communist Party have been probed by Congress. Gotion, whose Michigan investment was backed by Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) has “ties to Chinese paramilitary organizations and state-sponsored slave labor programs,” according to the bipartisan Select Committee on the CCP. In recent weeks, Slotkin recently fully flip-flopped on Gotion, prompting her Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, to accuse her of taking “a page directly out of Kamala Harris’s book: do[ing] and say[ing] anything to get elected.”
Tom Barrett, who is running to succeed Slotkin in Congress, criticized the Gotion plant, telling the Reporter that “Michiganders were promised thousands of new jobs in exchange for billions in taxpayer funded giveaways to global corporations to build EV plants in our state. [Yet] even with the Biden-Harris EV mandates and backroom negotiations like my opponent undertook to give a CCP-backed company $175 million in taxpayer-funding, autoworkers are instead losing their jobs by the thousands.” Barrett’s opponent, Curtis Hertel, is under pressure to break his silence on a non-disclosure agreement he signed that sent taxpayer funds to Gotion. “I remain opposed to EV mandates and corporate welfare that costs too many Americans their jobs,” Barrett said.
In another open House seat in Michigan, Republican Paul Junge told the Reporter that EV mandates “will gut Michigan manufacturing and drive up costs for drivers and taxpayers.” Junge’s Democratic opponent, Kristen McDonald Rivet, also backed the Gotion plant. “We need a balanced approach that allows drivers freedom to select the vehicle best for their family and avoids massive taxpayer-funded subsidies like Kristen McDonald Rivet’s $175 million to a Chinese company,” he said.