At first it was historic.
Then, meh.
When Joe Biden visited striking auto workers in Michigan on Sept. 26, he was the first US president ever to walk a picket line. He spoke for just one minute through a bullhorn, and stayed for about 15, before flying to a campaign fundraiser in California. But he did something unprecedented by siding with striking workers against their corporate bosses, which presidents normally don’t do.
Biden probably went to Michigan because Donald Trump said he was going. The former president announced his visit first, as counterprogramming to the Sept. 27 Republican debate, which Trump skipped. Biden arrived a day before Trump, however, which took some of the novelty away from Trump’s Michigan appearance.
It’s no secret why the two most likely 2024 general election candidates are wooing blue-collar workers in Michigan. As in 2020, Michigan and nearby Wisconsin are likely to be crucial swing states in 2024 — and union workers could be the swing voters who tip each state blue or red. Biden flipped both states in 2020, winning Michigan by 2.8 percentage points and Wisconsin by a scant 0.6 points. But since Trump won both states in 2016, they’re both considered up for grabs in 2024.
In 2016, Trump did better with unions than Republicans normally do, winning 43% of the vote from households with a union member. Hillary Clinton got 51%. Biden improved on Clinton, pulling 56% of the union vote in 2020. Trump dropped back to 40%, the same as Mitt Romney in 2012. Drawing some union voters back from Trump was an important factor in Biden’s 2020 win.
Biden obviously wants to keep it that way, which explains his break with establishment norms and his appearance at a picket line outside a General Motors plant. Trump may have done himself no favors by visiting Michigan. Instead of addressing striking workers, he gave a speech at a non-union shop, trashing the leadership of the United Auto Workers and predicting doom for the whole industry if Biden gets reelected. Trump’s main reason for showing up was the usual — to complain. The UAW endorsed Biden in 2020, and of course Trump is sore about it. One thing Trump didn’t do in Michigan: side with the striking workers.
Biden took some new risks, however. By backing the striking workers’ demands, he put himself in a win or lose position, based on the outcome of the strike. If the workers get more or less what they want—a 46% pay raise, better status for younger workers, and more unionized jobs at green energy plants — it will be a win for Biden as well.
But there are two losing scenarios for Biden: One is that the workers don’t get a satisfying deal, which would make him look like an insincere cheerleader who didn’t use his political muscle to actually help workers. The other is a strike that lasts for months, causing shortages of cars and higher prices just as the car market is stabilizing after deep COVID-era disruptions.
With a year to go until the home stretch of the 2024 election, chaos seems to be gathering. Republicans are gumming up the normal functioning of government, as they do every few years. Migrant crises are spreading from the southeast border to the rest of the country. The economy generally remains solid, but persistent inflation and rising interest rates are spooking the stock market and unnerving consumers on a budget. And now an auto workers strike evokes the nasty labor-management strife of the 1970s.
Biden can’t control everything, and Republicans will most likely catch the blame for any shutdown chaos, as they should. But voters don’t exactly write out a checklist of things that bother them, then decide one by one which are the president’s fault, and which are not. If voters are uneasy, they blame the incumbent, whether he deserves it or not. And voters are growing uneasy.
Biden drew predictable criticism for choosing sides in the auto workers strike, but it will probably do him a little good and no harm if the strike doesn’t build into something uglier. But now that he has shown his hand, Biden has to prove his bona fides by sticking with the strikers and helping them win, and pulling that off without any broader turmoil. If he doesn’t, Biden voters may be the ones who go on strike next year.
Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman.
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