Yesterday, Joe Biden became the first president ever to picket with workers on strike. That bit of trivia surprised me. Given labor’s importance to the Democratic Party (there’s no Blue Wall without Michigan, after all), I had thought this was a partnership forged in fire. National Democrats may have thought that, too, until they lost Michigan in 2016 and narrowly retook it in 2020. Now Biden’s making history taking up the bullhorn for the United Auto Workers, in part to shore up that support for 2024. The move makes sense, especially ahead of former President Trump’s scheduled speech in Michigan tonight, but it is not without its drawbacks. 

As Charles Lane of The Washington Post notes, vocal and influential sectors of the Democratic Party have pushed their leaders to embrace electric vehicle production. This is a matter of concern to the auto workers, since EVs require significantly fewer parts and many assembly plants are located in right-to-work states. For these reasons, among others, the two voting blocs are in direct conflict, giving Biden a bit of a tightrope to navigate. Ultimately, it’s hard to see the EV set abandoning him for Trump over this, so he probably made the right move politically. But what if Trump’s talk tonight shows Biden has more work to do to earn labor’s vote? What does the president do then? That’s where the tightrope will really come into play. Stay tuned.