The former president’s frequently apocalyptic language around EVs made national news over the weekend, with Trump saying the Biden administration’s promotion of the vehicles would lead to a “blood bath” in the auto industry and beyond if President Biden wins reelection.
While much of the national coverage of the remarks centered on the former president’s phrasing and his campaign’s insistence that it was meant figuratively, his comments were also part of a longer tradition of often exaggerated or false anti-EV rhetoric from Trump.
The former president has frequently attacked EVs in Michigan, a key swing state where recent polling has shown Biden running behind his 2020 performance. The state is also a major automotive manufacturing hub, and the former president has frequently sought to stoke or exploit autoworker anxieties about whether EVs could cost jobs in the industry.
Mike Murphy, a Republican political consultant who has been critical of Trump and argued against politicizing electric vehicles, said that the Republican base has been negatively polarized against them, giving Trump — and other former candidates for the party’s presidential nomination, including former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley — an incentive to attack the vehicles during the GOP primary.
“EVs have become politically loaded among Republicans, so if you’re looking at a Republican primary, he’s partially driving that,” Murphy told The Hill. But, he said, such anti-EV invective is likely less appealing to swing voters, particularly if they associate local and state investment with the push for EVs.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
