Michigan, EVs and the Presidential Race

Reframing the EV issue in the key states

Yes, more EV stuff. But it’s important. Today we launched the American EV Jobs Alliance. Why? The EV debate in this big election year has gotten cattywampus. Anti-EV Republican’s, led predictably by Donald Trump and JD Vance, are incessantly bashing Electric Vehicles.

It’s about tribalism. Since EVs were initially marketed as “green” vehicles, base Republicans decided they were suspect Democrat-mobiles and therefore evil and wrong.

Why should anybody care? Stupid political polarization is nothing new to American politics these days.

China, that’s why. The People’s Republic is now the world’s larger maker and exporter of cars. The Chinese government starting writing blank checks over a decade ago to any Comrade who wanted to build a new EV plant. Now they produce a surplus of cars and are flooding the world market; both EVs and ICE (internal combustion) vehicles. They are rapidly eating market share in Asia (auto plants are closing in Thailand), Mexico/LATAM and Europe.

Of course it helps to pay your autoworkers only about 9 bucks an hour. Firebrand UAW Boss Shawn Fain really needs to spend a bit more time in China seizing up the competition.

(In fact I’m reminded of a trip I took from Seattle to Shanghai on a cargo ship in 2019. When I landed in Shanghai and got off the trusty Hanjin Miami, a group of Chinese longshoreman walked over to greet me. They wanted to try out their English. I asked them if they had a union. They laughed, telling me: “In China, work. Then die.”)

Simply put the Chinese leadership have a simple strategy for autos, led by EVs: grab about 90% of all world auto manufacturing by 2040. They win, we lose.

(This is the old Packard plant in Detroit. It’s where many Spitfire engines came from when they were needed most.)

“If we screw up on EVs, I cannot tell you we will still be here in 15 years.” I heard that not from a politician but from the CEO of a large U.S. auto company.

So stupid political bashing of EVs is silly and big win for China. In this year’s election, however, there is an opportunity to do better.

Take a look at this map. These are new manufacturing plants related to EVs that either employ at least 3000 Americans, or represent at least $1B in new investment. (And my fellow Republicans, you should notice that a lot of it is in red states.)

The real issue about EVs this election year is simple: it’s a job issue, stupid!

There is a massive manufacturing boom in America right now, with nearly $100 billion in new plant construction, and many new manufacturing jobs, all related to Electric Vehicles. So maybe we should tell the voters?

The hard political truth is very few voters have any ideas about all this. This huge American win is the greatest campaign story not being told.

So we are doing something about it; the American EV Jobs Alliance is launching an ad campaign in the critical 2024 swing state of Michigan. (Michigan is number two in new EV manufacturing investment. Fellow swing state Georgia is number one.)

I think going on strong offense — not always easy for the often neurotic Democrats unlike the Ready, Shoot, Aim GOP — about EV jobs is a massive campaign opportunity for Kamala Harris and pro-EV job politicians in both parties.

(And Harris, despite her first-rate “vibes” convention could really use some meat and potatoes middle class economic issues in the swing states.)

Important factoid: 68% of the key swing state Electoral College votes come from states with huge new investment and thousands of new manufacturing jobs related to the move toward more Electric Vehicles.

So we are telling the story.

Our ad doesn’t electioneer. We don’t tell anybody who to vote for. (We are a c4 group not a SuperPac.) We do tell Michigan voters the facts many do not know about how many EV jobs are already up and working in the Wolverine state, with tens of thousands on the way. And we remind voters about the high stakes America faces as the world auto industry moves toward Electric Vehicles. Who will get those future jobs? America or China? Click to view it.

We tested the spot with 400 Michigan voters and they like it. We asked those voters to agree or disagree with this statement: “the move to electric vehicles is good for Michigan’s economy and is creating more good jobs in our state.” At first only 41% agreed. (No wonder JD Vance was in Michigan yesterday bashing an EV battery plant yesterday and Trump will be there today.)

We then showed 200 of those 400 Michigan voters a generic ad, and showed the other 200 voters our EV jobs ad. The result? Among those who viewed our spot, there was a double-digit lift in agreement with the statement that the move to EVs is good for Michigan jobs. Among Trump voters, agreement increased by +19%. Among women +17. It also did very well with voters who have a high school eduction or some college (read blue collar.)

So the American EV Jobs Alliance is off to the races to tell the EV jobs story. In Michigan, we’ve spun the ol’ digital dials and are targeting a group of about 220,00 swing voters connected to the auto industry and manufacturing. We’ll be on their phones and smart TVs and other devices right after Labor Day.

(If you want to help put this ad on the air in Michigan, and hopefully a Georgia version too, you can donate here.) We could really use more funding.

Now this blog is about politics, so I know there might, just maybe, be a few cynics out there reading this. They are probably thinking “Wow, slick move Murphy. You’re cashing on the EV war!” Well, shocker, that is not so. I started this group on my own dime and I’m a large donor to it, both in cash and time. One day, sure, it might turn into a nice client — nothing wrong with that — but fundamentally this is a cause for me.

Why? I’m from Detroit. The auto industry put generations of my family and millions of others into the middle class. I’d rather not see it go away. Plus there are big national security reasons to consider.

“If the Pentagon calls me in a decade and says they want a thousand tanks, I don’t want to have to tell them to call Shanghai”, one big Auto Biz leader told me. “But we are heading there.”

Detroit people like to joke that our manufacturing muscle is one big reason Americans don’t speak German or Japanese today. Packard mass produced vital Spitfire engines. Henry Ford built a huge assembly line for bombers in Willow Run Michigan (building over 8,000 large planes!)

Walter Chrysler produced immense numbers of tanks (Chrysler was also the company the Pentagon asked to sweep into Germany and scoop up Werner von Braun and a bunch more German rocket scientists; but that’s a story for another time).

As the Arsenal of Democracy, U.S. manufacturing supplied not only America’s armed forces, but the Soviet army and the British military. In sum, U.S. Industry produced nearly two-thirds of all Allied war material.

Nostalgia? Perhaps. But the Chinese study history carefully. They understand what a massive industrial base can do, led by a huge auto manufacturing capacity. We would be smart to remember that as well. In this important election, we shouldn’t bash EVs but celebrate a growing opportunity for American manufacturing.