Nearly 5-in-10 Michigan voters said they will likely vote to replace President Trump in the upcoming 2020 presidential election as General Motors (GM) continues layoffs in the state and keeps working class communities in the dark about future layoffs.
A new poll from EPIC-MRA finds that Rust Belt voters, by and large, may not be convinced that an economic nationalist populist agenda will prevail under Trump. In Michigan, about 49 percent of voters polled said they would vote to replace Trump with another presidential candidate, while 16 percent said they would consider voting against Trump.
Only about 31 percent of voters polled said they would vote to re-elect Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Swing voters polled are the driving force behind the dismal numbers for the Trump campaign. About 44 percent of swing voters in Michigan said they would vote for another candidate and less than 20 percent said they would vote to re-elect Trump.
Even among Republicans, the poll finds Trump trailing compared to other states. Though 80 percent of GOP voters said the president was doing a good job, only about 67 percent said they would vote to re-elect him. Trump’s poll numbers are the best with GOP men in Michigan, 74 percent of which said they would vote for him in 2020. Less than 60 percent of GOP women said the same.
Trump won Rust Belt states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania after decades of pro-free trade, economic libertarian Republican presidential candidates losing the region. Trump’s 2016 campaign centered on protecting American jobs from job-killing free trade deals and punishing multinational corporations who outsource U.S. industry jobs.
As of late, though, Trump has yet to take a hardline stance against GM’s outsourcing, offshoring, and mass layoffs of American workers in the Rust Belt area, as well as states like Maryland, Ohio, Georgia, and Texas.
This week, GM executives announced that at least 80 workers would be laid off at its Pontiac Metal Center, which serves as a supplier to Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant, which GM is planning to close this year — leaving thousands of U.S. workers out of work.
United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials and GM workers met with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer about the four American plants that GM is closing this year. After the meeting, the U.S. workers said they were not convinced that the Trump administration is taking the issue seriously.
Trade experts have called on Trump to impose auto tariffs to protect American auto worker jobs and industry from moving overseas for production.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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