MORE ALIKE THAN DIFFERENT — Beneath the increasingly ugly campaign rhetoric, the two parties are converging on a critical issue — industrial policy — in a key Midwestern state. They’re all loath to admit it 60 days out from election day, but when it comes to supporting factories in Michigan, their pitches are starting to sound surprisingly similar. The Biden/Harris administration has bet that reviving American manufacturing — through hefty subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act — will help it rebuild the Midwestern Blue Wall that Donald Trump toppled in 2016 with his populist economic rhetoric. In Michigan, the Democratic Senate nominee, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, is making that the center of her pitch to voters, consistently repeating the line that Michigan has 44 new factories under construction today, after decades of industrial decline. Whether those overtures register with Midwestern voters — many of whom remain dubious of the law — remains to be seen. But Trump’s economic advisers have clearly taken notice. Even as they vilify other aspects of Democrats’ economic policies, some key figures are quietly considering keeping at least some of the Biden/Harris industrial policies around. On Thursday, Trump’s former trade chief Robert Lighthizer gave the latest indication, telling reporters that a second Trump administration would consider keeping “certain parts” of the IRA in place — even if the “general” position of Republicans would be to push for a repeal for most of the law. It’s something Lighthizer’s advisers and protectionist elements in the GOP have been whispering for months around Washington. And it makes sense, since the IRA has flooded red states with funding and new manufacturing projects — leading some GOP lawmakers to awkwardly attend ribbon-cuttings for projects supported by a law they voted against. Instead of attacking the law in its entirety, Republicans are taking aim at specific aspects of the Biden industrial policies: climate and China. For months, they’ve been slamming what they call Biden’s “electric vehicle mandate” — a conflation of the IRA’s hefty incentives for clean energy and electric vehicle manufacturing, and Biden’s stricter EPA regulations for tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks. Slotkin’s challenger, former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, is blanketing the state with ads vilifying the so-called mandate and slamming her over votes against GOP bills that would have gutted the EPA regulations. The attacks seem to have registered with some key voters. In Macomb County, a critical swing region of Michigan, a half-dozen voters in and around a community music concert on Wednesday evening brought up the supposed EV “mandate” when asked about Democrats’ industrial policies. And they weren’t exactly happy about it. Democrats and the auto companies “are trying to force [EVs] down the public’s throat,” said Kim Langenbach, a retired Ford engineer who was puffing on a cigar in his lawn chair at the concert on the shores of Lake St. Clair. “But the public doesn’t want them.” But here, the parties appear to be converging again. The EV mandate attacks have Democrats backtracking, trying to convince voters that despite their efforts to push customers toward electric vehicles with subsidies and regulations, they won’t actually force people out of gas-powered cars. Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who is vacating her seat at the end of the year, called the GOP charge of EV mandates “baloney” at a Thursday event in Lansing showcasing the IRA’s clean energy incentives for homeowners, and her would-be replacement went even further: ”I don’t give a crap whether you buy [an EV] or not. That’s not the issue,” Slotkin told reporters after a campaign stop in Lapeer, Mich. “There is no EV mandate.” Instead, Slotkin and Stabenow insist their support for EV manufacturing subsidies has to do more with economic and national security than climate action. If the cars of the future are going to be battery-powered, Slotkin says, she wants to ensure they are built in America — and not China. “You don’t have to drive one,” Slotkin said, “but I’m on team USA and I want them made here.” It’s an argument designed to blunt another GOP attack — that Democrats’ industrial policies will ultimately benefit China more than the U.S. For months, Rogers and other Republicans have been battering Slotkin with that criticism, focusing many of their attacks on a battery factory under construction in mid-Michigan by the Chinese-owned company Gotion. Though the plant owners have pledged not to take IRA funding, it has received some state-level incentives, and GOP Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance attempted to link it to Harris in a campaign stop last month, saying she cast the “tie-breaking vote” on the law that he said enabled the factory, the IRA. But here again, the parties are converging. Slotkin on Thursday told POLITICO that despite her desire for more domestic EV manufacturing, she would rather the Gotion plant not be completed — a position the Rogers campaign abruptly labeled a flip-flop. “To me, until there’s a national security vetting, I don’t love the idea of moving forward on any project or any sale of farmland” to a Chinese entity, Slotkin told reporters after a campaign event in Lapeer, Michigan, a small town outside of Flint. For both parties, rhetorical commitment to industrial policy is easy. Seeing it through will be more difficult. Despite billions set aside for battery factories in Michigan, a handful of flagship factories have only produced around 200 jobs so far, a June report from local outlet Michigan Bridge found this summer. Two major battery facilities being built to supply GM and Ford have been scaled back due to soft EV demand, and a third being constructed by an energy startup is delayed indefinitely. Despite those challenges, Democrats in Michigan and elsewhere say they will stay the course — even if it means doling out billions more in the future. Democratic lawmakers would “absolutely” consider further subsidies for domestic battery production if problems for the sector continue, said House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, who appeared as a Harris surrogate at a small business event in Lansing on Thursday. The IRA and CHIPS Act, she said, are the “beginning” for “bringing manufacturing back to our shores,” and “we need to continue to build on that.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at gbade@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @GavinBade.
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