Ask Arlene Williams about President Donald Trump’s promises to bring back auto industry jobs that have evaporated across Michigan and she’ll point with irony to the Chevy Blazer, The Associated Press writes.
General Motors is now remaking the iconic American SUV after a lengthy hiatus — but building parts of it in Mexico and elsewhere overseas.
“These are some of the staple brands and yes, they’re back,” said Williams, 49, who works at a GM plant in Romulus, Michigan, southwest of Detroit. “They’re just not being made in the U.S.”
The largest of six states voting Tuesday, Michigan could redefine a Democratic primary that has become a showdown between former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. But many voters are already looking ahead to November and whether Trump can again win in the state that perhaps more than any other catapulted him into the White House in 2016.
For Sanders, the stakes could hardly be higher. He defeated Hillary Clinton in Michigan in 2016, emboldening his argument that he could win with a diverse coalition that drew well from young voters, working-class whites and African Americans. But it is the kind of victory he has not been able to replicate this time, and if he does not on Tuesday, any chances at the Democratic nomination may be greatly diminished.
Biden has been emphasizing the Obama administration’s bailout of the auto industry, which provided an economic lifeline for GM and Chrysler and federal loans for Ford, likely saving thousands of jobs. He is also counting on continued strong support among African American voters, AP added.
How Michigan votes will also be clarifying for November. Some see Sanders’ sweeping promises to cancel student debt and provide health care for all potentially energizing young voters but not older ones wary of his democratic socialist ideology. Centrist and safe, Biden could do exactly the opposite, though.
Others worry that both candidates are taking black Democrats for granted. All that may add up to neither being able to carry the state against Trump.
“There’s not a lot of energy, not enough energy, I would say, even for the primary,” said Michigan state Rep. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, whose district includes a large swath of northwest Detroit. She said the Democratic Party continues to use the same playbook of waiting until the last minute to do intensive community outreach — which crippled it in 2016.
Indeed, major party turnout in Wayne County, which encompasses Detroit and is strongly African American, fell by more than 64,000 votes in 2016 as compared to 2012. That’s especially important since Trump leveled the Democrats’ famed “blue wall” with narrow wins in states that were supposed to comfortably go to Hillary Clinton: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, which he won by just 10,704 votes out more than 4.8 million cast.
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