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We head to Michigan now, where a close race for a U.S. Senate seat continues amid a trade war between the U.S. and Canada. Michigan Public Radio's Russ McNamara reports on how both candidates are reaching out to auto workers.
RUSS MCNAMARA, BYLINE: Republican Mike Rogers spent 14 years in Congress and is now running for U.S. Senate. He touted his auto industry credentials earlier this week.
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MIKE ROGERS: I started out in a car factory building Chrysler LeBaron convertibles. It's a really good car. I love that car.
MCNAMARA: Rogers worked in a nonunion shop in the early 1980s, making modifications to already assembled cars. His opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, while holding public health degrees, also has blue collar backing, specifically the United Auto Workers Union. In an interview with Michigan Public Radio, UAW President Shawn Fain explained why El-Sayed is their choice.
SHAWN FAIN: We got to elect people that give a damn about workers, not billionaires and corporate class people. I mean, and unfortunately, our political system has been hijacked by the richest people in the world.
MCNAMARA: Looming in the background of Michigan's U.S. Senate race, which could help decide the balance of power in Washington next year, is the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and Canada. Fain says he doesn't outwardly dislike certain levies.
FAIN: We support strategic targeted tariffs. Now, blanket tariffs on everything under the sun or tariffs just to, like, try to force a country to do something for political reasons, that makes no sense whatsoever. And the 50% on Canada, we don't agree with that. Like, Canada's not the problem.
MCNAMARA: That message was echoed by workers earlier this month during Detroit's Labor Day Parade. Retired auto worker Stan Geis carried a sign emblazoned with images of an American flag and the Canadian maple leaf. The message? Solidarity. We stand with our neighbor.
STAN GEIS: I liked what we had, the trade across the border with men working in our country from Canada back and forth. It was good. Now, it's the stinks.
MCNAMARA: That's not to say the relationship between the UAW and the workers of Unifor, the Canadian auto workers union, hasn't hit some potholes. John D'Agnolo is the president of Unifor Local 200 across the border in Windsor. Southern Ontario is home to factories of several major automakers. He says American auto workers sometimes have the wrong idea.
JOHN D'AGNOLO: They think that we're taking from them when we're not.
MCNAMARA: D'Agnolo just wrapped up a grueling two weeks in contract negotiations with automakers Stellantis. That's formerly Chrysler. They're not going well, and D'Agnolo says tariffs are making them more difficult, and the American political climate isn't helping. Windsorites get all the Michigan political ads from Detroit area TV stations.
D'AGNOLO: You have to turn off the TV 'cause you don't want to hear it 'cause it becomes your life. Now you got mental issues because you're worried. So, yeah, it's horrible right now.
MCNAMARA: Back in Michigan, El-Sayed doesn't like that President Trump picked a fight with Canada.
ABDUL EL-SAYED: There's a way that tariffs could be used to actually protect jobs. This ain't it. Like all things Donald Trump, it is chaotic, ham-fisted, self-serving.
MCNAMARA: El-Sayed points out that his Republican opponent was an advocate for free trade until this latest round of tariffs. For his part, Rogers told C-SPAN this week he plans to collaborate with President Trump, in a way El-Sayed will not.
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ROGERS: I will go back to work with the president on tariffs that are working and work with the president on tariffs that are not working. You know, my opponent, alls he wants to do is fight with Trump.
MCNAMARA: A conservative free market organization, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, says President Trump's tariffs are costing Michiganders an extra $5,600 per year. That's the third highest in the nation behind California and Texas. Steve Gregorian heads the influential Detroit Economic Club. He thinks that could play a role in this election.
STEVE GRIGORIAN: We're business people, but we go to the grocery store. We go to fill up our gas tanks. So it's definitely top of mind. And I think it will definitely be top of mind as people go to the polls.
MCNAMARA: And it's now less than six weeks to election day.
For NPR News, I'm Russ McNamara in Detroit. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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