Post-Election Michigan Analysis

As you might have noticed, we’ve been focused on Michigan this election cycle. This presidential swing state was also the home to a hotly contested Senate race. We knew this political context would put Michigan, the historic home the American automotive industry, in the EV-crosshairs.

Please find the report below on what we found during this cycle.

Our analyses cover:

The political advertising landscape (pages 1-4), our own statewide poll in the closing stretch of the campaign (pages 5-37), an analysis of EV messaging impact based on election results (pages 36-38), and finally lessons learned (pages 38-39).

We hope you give our report (above) a full read. In case you’re short on time, find some of our lessons learned.

– Pro-EV manufacturing investment candidates ignore attacks on their position at their peril.

– The powerful story of American EV job investment can move voters, but only if it is told. Otherwise, messages of fear can and will work, even in a state with massive new investment in EV jobs.

– Now, with a pro-EV Presidential candidate defeated by an openly hostile antiEV candidate even in the heartland of EV manufacturing investment, conventional wisdom among political partisans on the GOP side in Washington DC is moving toward a confident assumption that EV investment and subsidies are a political “loser” and can safely be attacked.

– Well-sourced reporting that interest groups, the Trump administration, and
119th Congress will likely target IRA investments and incentives.

The bottom line: if the EV industry and its allies do not tell the jobs story connected
to North American EV manufacturing and build the political support that the
industry needs, their opponents will tell their hostile story and they will succeed
politically.