EVs become flashpoint in pivotal Michigan Senate race

Electric vehicles are emerging as a flashpoint in Michigan’s pivotal Senate race. 

Republican Mike Rogers has put Democrat Elissa Slotkin on defense, frequently bashing both her and the Biden administration on the issue and trying to tie Slotkin to an “EV mandate.”

Meanwhile, Slotkin has sought to toe a fine line — supporting investment in electric vehicles while saying she does not support a mandate that everyone drive them.

The Michigan Senate race could help determine which party controls the upper chamber next year. Democrats currently hold an extremely slim majority and occupy a number of vulnerable seats. The Cook Political Report rates the Michigan race, in which Slotkin and Rogers are running to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D), as a “toss up.”

The Biden administration has issued a regulation forcing automakers to make a greater share of their new cars electric or hybrid, but it does not fully ban new gas-powered cars.

Amid criticism from Rogers, Slotkin released an ad this month telling voters she does not support an EV mandate, but stressed that she wants such cars to be built in Michigan. 

"No one should tell us what to buy, and no one is going to mandate anything,” she says in the ad. “But here's the thing, if there's going to be a new generation of vehicles, I want that new generation built right here in Michigan, not China.”

She made similar comments in response to a question in a debate with Rogers this past week, emphasizing her support for investment but not a ban.

“I don't care what kind of car you want to drive, I don't drive an EV. I live on a dirt road on a farm,” Slotkin said. “But if the fundamental question is, 'Who do you want to make that next generation of vehicles?' you better believe I want that to be Michigan and not China.”

“Right now, everyone knows China is eating our lunch on these kind of vehicles,” she added. "In Michigan in the '70s and '80s, we didn't think anyone would drive anything but a big vehicle. We saw these little, very fuel efficient vehicles. We poo-pooed them. And then the Japanese came in and ate our lunch. The Koreans came in and ate our lunch. I don't want to miss that next generation.”

Rogers, meanwhile, attacked Slotkin over her vote against a longshot effort to repeal the Biden administration’s car regulation. 

He said during the debate that his opponent “doubled down on her position on EV mandates.” Rogers’s camp also released an ad in response to Slotkin’s advertisement, accusing her of lying.

“Michigan’s auto industry is ingrained in our way of life ... but Harris and Slotkin want to take that all away and make us even more reliant on China with their job-destroying EV mandates,” Rogers said in a statement to The Hill. 

“Michiganders have made it clear they don’t want to be forced to build cars that Americans don’t want to buy, and in Washington I’ll stand up for our autoworkers and put an end to this nonsense and invest in Michigan, not China,” he added. 

A person familiar with the campaign’s strategy told The Hill that Rogers is expected to continue to talk about the issue until election day. 

Rogers’s campaign did not immediately respond to questions from The Hill about whether the candidate would support a repeal of subsidies for EVs and climate-friendly manufacturing if he’s elected. 

Slotkin’s campaign did not respond to questions from The Hill. 

Rogers has also sought to tie Slotkin to a controversial battery plant being built near Grand Rapids, Michigan, by a subsidiary of Chinese company Gotion High-Tech.

The site noted that Slotkin signed a non-disclosure agreement with the Michigan Economic Development Corp. which gave an incentive to Gotion's subsidiary, but that Slotkin has not signed any agreement with the company itself. 

The attacks come amid broader tensions over EV manufacturing.

Michigan has historically been a car manufacturing hub, and as of August, more than 117,000 people worked in automaking in the state, according to preliminary data.

But a shift toward electric vehicles has raised questions about the future of auto worker jobs. 

In 2022, Ford CEO Jim Farley said that making EVs requires 40 percent fewer workers, but he also said the company would seek to make more car parts in house and retrain workers to do so. 

Experts told The Hill last year that they don’t expect the shift to EV manufacturing to necessarily be a job killer — citing the potential for new battery-making jobs — but noted that some jobs may shift to new areas of the country or may depend on whether pro-worker policies are put in place. 

Jason Cabel Roe, a Republican strategist in Michigan, told The Hill that the fact that Slotkin ran an ad clarifying her position on electric vehicles is evidence that Republican attacks are working. 

“It is one of the top issues being debated, and you can tell it's having an impact, because Slotkin … has actually been running ads saying ‘I don’t care what kind of car you drive,’” Roe said. 

But Michigan Democratic strategist Adrian Hemond said he believes Democrats can turn the issue around on Republicans by talking about investments preventing jobs going not only to China but also to other states.

Hemond said that “we deserve our piece of the pie the same as California and Texas” is a powerful argument, particularly referencing non-union Tesla plants in those states.

Eddie Vale, a national Democratic strategist, said that talking about investments can help Democrats in “neutralizing” Republican attacks. 

Roe, however, said he doesn’t think voters will see the nuance of opposing an EV mandate but supporting investment, saying they will instead see one candidate as pro-EV and the other as anti-EV. 

He compared the issue to an anti-abortion candidate “running an ad trying to defend their pro-lifeness.”

“It doesn't make a pro-choice person like them, it just sets up the binary choice,” he said. 

Vale said Democrats can also put their argument in simple terms. 

“I do think that while it's harder to argue about how subsidies are structured or how plants are incentivized to retool, the flip side of our argument of just saying, 'Don't let China do this. Trump wants to let China win' is also a very simple top line message."