Unhappy blue-collar Michigan voters turned off by Hillary, back in play in 2020

Blue-collar workers in Michigan don't feel ignored this time.

Having Hillary Rodham Clinton on the ticket in 2016 was widely viewed as a disaster for some and completely uninspiring to others.

"I didn't feel voting was necessary last time," said Angeline Joseph, 26, a materials handler from Redford Township.

The apathy cost Clinton what was considered a shoo-in victory in Michigan, which hadn't elected a Republican presidential candidate in nearly three decades. Donald Trump didn't win the state as much as Clinton depressed the union vote, workers interviewed by the Free Press say.

While the difference may seem subtle, it carries serious implications for Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Still, he has to work hard, union workers said.

During this period of uncertainty about the economy, job cuts, supply chain disruption, tariffs and a pandemic, blue-collar workers described the importance of feeling understood.

After all, labor is a huge voting bloc in Michigan.

The UAW alone represents 130,000 active dues-paying members plus 210,000 retirees in Michigan, mostly affiliated with General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, the union confirmed. And UAW membership is growing.

In Michigan, the number of people represented by unions hovered around 15% or 648,000 in 2019, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

Clinton ignored Michigan and took for granted working men and women, blue-collar workers say. She didn't visit much. She didn't talk a lot about auto assembly workers, millwrights, carpenters, electricians or plumbers toiling in factories or the fact they felt pushed aside and unworthy of attention.

In 2016 and now, Trump has come to Michigan, praised American workers and touted the need for friendlier trade policies. He eked out a win in Michigan by just 10,704 votes of nearly 4.8 million cast.

Since then, automakers have blamed steel tariffs for bruising their earnings. Auto companies continue to pare down their workforce, with many suppliers simply going under. Plant closures have been announced even as carmakers made new investments in previously announced programs, particularly electric vehicles. And the Trump administration’s easing of air quality standards has proven to offer limited value to automakers seeking to sell products in markets with more stringent standards.

COVID-19 has hit the auto industry hard, and it shut down for eight weeks. That led to parts disruptions and product launch delays, which can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. When the federal government relaxed its safety protocols, auto companies did not.

Eyes on Angeline

The key to victory is getting votes from blue-collar workers who sat out in 2016.

Angeline Joseph, the young mother who sat out the last election and works at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in Sterling Heights, said she decided to register to vote now because things feel too chaotic and she worries about the future for her son, who is 4.

"I think Biden offers a little more stability, just overall," Joseph said.

"I feel it's very crucial that my generation should vote and make the difference," she said. "The future depends on it. With the turmoil over the last four years, it should be an eye opener for our country. I feel like Biden is the best person for the job because he cares for the people. He wants health care. He wants people to keep their Social Security benefits. He wants to keep child care (costs) under 7%."

Joseph has been consuming news for months, researching and understanding issues, she said. "It's important to know for myself and not take somebody's word for it."

1 in 3 votes GOP

While Trump has continuously touted union worker support, he actually just held the same one-third of the UAW vote won by Republicans historically; 31% for Trump in 2016, 30% for Mitt Romney in 2012, 32% for John McCain in 2008, according to UAW research.

The UAW, which represents nearly 1 million active members and retirees nationally, said its post-election survey of members showed Clinton won what appeared to be an impressive 63% of the UAW vote. But it was less than Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

In 2016, a whopping 6% of UAW voters who cast ballots either left their presidential choice empty or supported a third party candidate -- triple the number of previous years, union officials said.

The margin is enough to swing an election, and UAW voter patterns of discontent translated to a statewide trend.

While Trump won Michigan by that margin of fewer than 11,000 votes, the number of people overall who cast a ballot but left the presidential box empty was 75,335 -- more than double the number of undervotes in 2008, the last time the presidency didn't include an incumbent.

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In short, some voters who historically picked a Democrat just couldn't do it.

But Trump doesn't have that buffer with Biden, Trump supporters said.

"Standing on the side, if I were to combine all the different unions, knowing those people, I would say the reason a lot of them stayed out in 2016 is because I think they felt they didn't have a candidate in the presidential race," said Mike Galetti, 55, of Marlette, Michigan, a carpenter who who works in a nuclear power plant.

Joe vs. Hillary

"Now you throw Biden into the mix," Galetti said. "A lot of union people are thinking, man, Trump was in and he didn’t do enough. Maybe Biden will do something. A lot of people think (President) Obama was doing things to help the unions. They had that feeling."

Galetti, who plans to vote for Trump a second time, is the son of a skilled UAW tradesman and has a brother working at Chrysler. His father doesn't vote, his mom supports Trump and his brother doesn't talk politics.

He praised Trump for letting the states try to do their own coronavirus guidelines, and his vow to cut health-care costs.

"I'm on the Trump train," said Galetti, who noted that he pays his union dues despite working for a nonunion company.

Theresa Felt, 53, of Riley Township, who works in machine repair for Ford at the Romeo Engine Plant, which announced in 2019 plans to close, said she's voting for Trump, too.

"I just feel he’s done a good job," she told the Free Press recently. "So far, I think the economy -- other than the pandemic -- I think the country is doing better. I believe my 401(k) is doing way better than before. I’ve made a lot of money on that. Even through the pandemic, my 401(k) still was rising.”

'Marginalized, expendable'

Blue-collar workers have to feel a connection to engage, said Harley Shaiken, a professor and labor expert based at the University of California, Berkeley.

"Workers have to really sense you're talking to them, that you care about them and are going to address what is upending their lives," said Shaiken, who attended Cass Tech High School while his father worked at Chrysler. His grandfather worked for Ford at the Rouge Plant.

"Trump identified core problems and the way workers were marginalized and made to feel expendable in a global economy," Shaiken said. "His message resonated then but the fact that he didn't deliver is creating a problem for him now."

While Trump focused on the pain points of global trade, his reworking of the NAFTA deal has been widely characterized as revision versus overhaul.

Internal tracking polls of members, taken by the UAW in mid-July and again in early October, indicate Biden has brought home union voters who abandoned Clinton, while Trump support may be dipping slightly below the usual 30% union support that goes to GOP candidates in a presidential year, according to a UAW source with direct knowledge who was not authorized to discuss data publicly.

Rory Gamble, UAW president, told the Free Press though his union has endorsed Biden, it's just a recommendation.

"I never believe in dictating to our members," Gamble said.

Race issues matter

Ricky Callaway, 38, of Flint is a production worker in parts handling at a GM plant who has seen colleagues move toward Biden and away from Trump. Some feel bad about supporting Trump in the past, he said.

"They don't want anyone to know now," Callaway said.

A key issue that has moved a number of Black union workers is the president's handling of the public protests and police violence, said Callaway, who is African American. "Everything going on with the racial things -- it's like he doesn't show sincerity for what it is to be out here with the people. He don't understand that. He has this nonchalant attitude."

He went on, "I don't want to say he doesn't care about the people but it's more he could care less about what's going on in the world. Whatever world he's in, that's what he cares about. He doesn't care about the people in the U.S. as a whole. That's what I feel."

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Callaway, a father of three, said he is not supporting Biden because of his long political career or vice presidential role under Obama. What's key to Callaway is Biden's tone now.

"I think it's more sincerity about how they talk about the American people," Callaway said. "What I see now is I see somebody ready to fight for the people, the workers. I feel he's for those people."

When Trump removed his face mask immediately after returning to the White House recently from Walter Reed hospital for COVID-19 treatment, Callaway said, that sealed his Biden vote. "He took his mask off in front of the whole world to see. It was like, you're supposed to still be quarantined. You're at the White House and you took your mask off and you don't care about the workers at the White House either."

Callaway's oldest son, Xavier, is a college student in Texas voting for Biden, too. "The younger generation goes by what they see. He said during the debate, 'I don't understand how he can be on national TV and do the things he's doing. That's stuff what little brothers and sisters do.' "

Things changed

Fierce passion is what Terry Bowman likes best about Trump.

The assembly line worker, who has spent 24 years with Ford building transmission oil pumps, worked as a volunteer in 2016 as state cochair of the Trump campaign.

"Workers are very comfortable with Donald Trump, who is a New Yorker first and foremost. He built buildings and had relationships with steelworkers, pipefitters, plumbers and electricians."

What worked last time, and will work again, Bowman said, is "workers want to know who's with them and who's going to fight for them and put them first. When I spoke at rallies and said Donald Trump is the blue-collar billionaire -- the first president in a generation who promises to be with Michigan's blue-collar union workers -- the place would erupt every time. He said, 'I want to help you. I will stand with you.' "

As cochairman of the Michigan GOP and national chairman of Workers for Trump advisory board, both volunteer roles, Bowman values union worker feedback.

When he wears a Trump-Pence T-shirt to work, people will give him a thumbs up, said Bowman, the son of a Ford assembly line worker. "I've never had anybody say Trump sucks. We're blue-collar union workers. I work in a place where f-bombs are dropped all the time. You're in a different culture. So people would absolutely come up and say that to me, say they can't stand the guy.'"

In 2016, Clinton scared workers with critical comments about the coal industry that were perceived by some as a precursor to an attack on combustion engines and the auto industry, Bowman said. "Everybody was saying, 'How long is it going to be until they come after us?' It was huge in the mind of the autoworker."

This election cycle, domestic and foreign automakers are focused on making massive investments in electrification as the auto industry evolves.

Financially squeezed

"Voters who are suffering economically are almost always more inclined to vote for the challenger than the incumbent," said longtime GOP consultant Dan Schnur, who now teaches political communications at the University of Southern California.

While 10 states had a higher percentage of workers affiliated with unions than Michigan, 648,000 people or 15% of the workforce was affiliated with a union in Michigan in 2019, according to the AFL-CIO.

Charles Knox, 66, a UAW retiree from Flushing, worked on the GM assembly line building commercial trucks before taking a union leadership role at Local 598 in Flint. He said he voted in this election as soon as he received his ballot and delivered it in person to the county clerk the first week of October.

"I have two sources of income: my pension and Social Security. I'm not too concerned about my pension but Social Security is a main factor," he said. "What I'm hearing from President Trump and how they're talking about tampering with monies already set aside and monies we've already put in for our livelihoods, I don't like the terminology as it relates to Social Security being an entitlement. I feel I'm entitled to it because I paid in for 40 years."

Words matter

Stating a commitment to union workers has impact, they say.

And during interviews with union workers from different trades, most pointed to how they felt -- gut instinct -- more than specific policies.

That, they said, helps Biden.

"When voters say they care less about the issues and more about the message or actually how it's communicated, that actually is them telling you in a very direct way they're tired of politics as usual. They're tired and they've had it with what they see as a political system that speaks past them and not to them," said Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist and pollster based in Washington, D.C.

"When you grow up poor, it changes the way you look at the world, he said. "I grew up poor. My dad was an immigrant. He had a small business. He worked 364 days a year and he needed every dollar to support a five-kid family. These stressful realities are pervasive across America. Now, more than ever, Americans are worried about their families and the future. People are terrified. They're freaking out."

The one day Kofinis' father didn't work was Christmas, when he cooked for his family.

Religious union households

While Trump has appealed to social conservatives with his positions on abortion rights and homosexuality, evangelical voters in the Black community who cater to blue-collar workers say the recent presidential debate created a problem for Trump when he didn't condemn the Proud Boys.

"I have pastoral colleagues who did support him before who will not be supporting him now. When he could not denounce white supremacy, that hurt him. That's a core value," said Chris Martin of Grand Blanc, pastor of Cathedral of Faith Church in Flint and former president of the Flint School Board. "I have a grown son and a teenage son. I do not want white supremacist law enforcement officers stopping them and shooting them."

As the son of a GM worker, Martin said, "I'm a working-class individual. I come from a UAW family. People are concerned about decency. I've talked to white middle class suburban residents who had always voted Republican. One guy said, 'This guy is so out of control. I voted for him in 2016 but not now.' "

Awful choices

Hillary Clinton and Trump were two of the least popular major party presidential candidates since serious polling began in the 1950s, said Ken Kollman, a political science professor at the University of Michigan who specializes in elections.

"Voter dislike for each was intense. In Michigan, Clinton had a more difficult time compared to previous Democratic candidates connecting with blue-collar workers, African Americans and Latinos," he said.

Michigan voters unhappy with the major party candidates in 2016 cast 275,878 votes for third party or other candidates -- about 5% of the vote compared with 1% in 2012.

This time around, voters seem more engaged in what's perceived as a high-stakes fight for the future that affects daily life and Biden isn't saddled with so much baggage, former Democratic Gov. James Blanchard told the Free Press.

"Michigan is a toss-up state, not a solid Democratic state. Michigan has always been mischaracterized by the chattering classes in Washington," he said. "People in Michigan like Biden and they trust him with power. He worked hard with Detroit to get the city help. He helped with the rescue of General Motors and Chrysler."

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U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, told the Free Press she tried to get the Clinton campaign to work harder in the state and focus on the labor vote. "No one is going to write Michigan off this time. We certainly did four years ago."

'Culture' misunderstood

Too many political campaigns, and national journalists covering them, fail to grasp the culture of Michigan as a swing state and misunderstand key issues, union workers say. For example, a blue-collar worker is solidly middle class and often has a hunting cabin and enjoys guns. So gun positions are more nuanced. Families love to hunt, both Democrats and Republicans.

"Issues, while important, don't matter as much as culture," said Matthew Dowd, chief political analyst at ABC News who was born in Detroit and grew up in the metro area as one of 11 children. His mother was a Detroit teacher and his father worked at Ford, then Chrysler.

"Cultural alignment is much more important than an issue-specific stance. People thought culture mattered in southern states and western states but they don't understand how much culture matters in a place like Michigan," he said, noting that voters must feel "culturally aligned" with their candidates.

Making assumptions about blue-collar voters is a mistake, said Dowd, 59, now a resident of Wimberley, Texas, who comes home to visit family and spend time on Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.

"I'm 1,000% for gun reform and I own five rifles. I don't carry my guns around. I don't own an assault rifle," Dowd said. "I target shoot and hunt quail, wild hogs and deer. When I tell that to people in New York or California, they look at you like you're a Martian."

In terms of race issues, showing empathy for small town white voters and urban Black voters requires a deep understanding of different communities, Dowd said. Blue-collar voters in Michigan backed segregationist George Wallace and later civil rights activist Jesse Jackson.

"Michigan is a progressive state on many issues but it's a working-class state that has many elements of cultural conservatism," Dowd said. "Not Bible issues. But you need to understand why someone might want to hunt or fish, understand why people want rules to apply to everybody, not just a certain group. If you work hard and you're a good person, you can make it. People in Michigan are looking for politicians that don't look down their nose at them."

Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-222-6512 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid. Read more on Ford and sign up for our autos newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Unhappy blue-collar Michigan voters turned off by Hillary, back in play in 2020

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