The Midwest will decide who wins the White House in November. Much has been written about Kamala Harris’s not-so-subtle appeal to Michigan’s Muslim voters, and her choice of Tim Walz as running mate rounds the ticket out with a Minnesota governor who once praised an extremist Muslim cleric as a “master teacher”.
But away from the cheap tactics of identity politics — which will only fly with so many Midwesterners — Harris and Walz may have more trouble convincing the region of their environmental and industrial policies.
Over the last few months, the drive towards an all-electric auto industry has crashed against technological and economic realities. Electric vehicle mandates, which demand that EVs constitute roughly 70% of all car sales by 2032 (up from 7% today) are extremely ambitious.
Harris, like the Biden administration of which she is an integral part, has been doggedly in favour of these mandates. But now companies such as Ford, Stellantis and Volkswagen have begun to lay off workers or delay new plants due to the weak market. Ford has already cancelled plans to build an all-electric SUV, while Volkswagen has decided not to expand six battery plants in North America and Europe.
These developments, which will no doubt hurt the pockets of Midwesterners, could in turn damage the Democrats. Michigan alone boasts half a million auto workers, with Ohio and Indiana not far behind. The auto industry is also critical to manufacturing everything from steel to machine tools. If car factories disappear, so does much of the industrial infrastructure which supports them. Although Donald Trump is leading in Ohio and was ahead in the most recent polling data from Indiana — which was published before Biden dropped out — some of the strongest concentrations of industrial jobs are found in Wisconsin, a key swing state. Indeed, the Milwaukee area has a higher percentage of jobs in manufacturing than Detroit.
In the coming battle in the Midwest, it’s doubtful EV mandates and their likely impact on jobs will be an effective selling point for the Democrats. Despite progressive claims about a “renaissance” in US manufacturing, and enormous investments in EVs and batteries as well as semiconductors, the industrial sector has been in recession for the better part of the year.
At some point, possibly before November, the economic damage to the Rust Belt could prove decisive. In the first quarter of 2024, Ford lost an average of $44,000 per unit. Other car companies are also losing big on EV sales. This does not bode well for the future of auto manufacturers, which already face increased delinquencies and are obliged to raise prices on conventional vehicles to make up for EV losses.
Read the rest of this piece at UnHerd.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Photo: Liam Enea, via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.
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