Kamala Harris Makes Case That She, Not Donald Trump, Is The Auto Industry's Champion

FLINT, Mich. ― Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Friday came to the heart of America’s auto industry, promising to stand up for workers whom she said Donald Trump has abandoned.

In a speech to a raucous crowd of several thousand supporters, the vice president touted the Biden administration’s record of investing in the U.S. auto industry and publicly backing its unionized workforce.

“We have brought manufacturing back to America,” Harris said, citing news of newly opened factories in Michigan, which has the nation’s highest proportion of autoworkers and is among a handful of tightly contested states likely to decide the presidential election.

“We know we cannot have a strong middle class without American manufacturing,” Harris said.

But the most pointed and energetic part of Harris’ speech was her sharp attack on Trump, the former president who has made winning Michigan a priority of his bid to get back to the White House.

Harris warned that Trump would undermine the auto industry, citing his history of opposition to organized labor and, more recently, his threats to withdraw support for the production of electric vehicles (EVs).

Harris fights back on EVs.

The reference to EV investments was important because electric vehicles are at the center of a broader debate about the industry’s future.

Democratic policies that President Joe Biden signed into law ― and that Harris has supported ― are subsidizing the production and purchase of electric vehicles while tightening emission standards for new cars and trucks.

The hope is that the combined effect will keep American carmakers competitive with foreign counterparts that are already switching over to EVs while supporting high-paying jobs and helping to