In Michigan, Donald Trump plans two stops today. Watch them live

• On Friday, former President Donald Trump is delivering remarks outside Grand Rapids and a town hall in Warren
• Trump has visited Michigan almost weekly as polls show he and Vice President Kamala Harris deadlocked 
• He claims the switch to electric vehicles will decimate the industry, but Democrats say American automakers have done well under President Joe Biden

President Donald Trump plans two stops in Michigan on Friday as he continues to make a push in the crucial battleground state.

In numerous stops in Michigan since the summer, Trump has railed against electric vehicles and what he claims would be disastrous consequences for the auto industry if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected president.

Trump will first deliver remarks at 2 p.m. in Walker, outside Grand Rapids at a steel manufacturing facility and will host a 6 p.m. town hall-style event at Macomb Community College in Warren.

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Addressing supporters today, the former president could again turn to what’s become a familiar topic in his Michigan visits: electric vehicles. 

With polls showing him and Harris deadlocked in Michigan, Trump is making a sustained push to court autoworkers. While union leadership is backing Harris, Trump is attempting to woo the rank and file by speaking out against electric vehicles and competition from foreign automakers.

Macomb County, in particular, is crucial for Trump. He carried the county in 2016 and 2020, and voters there told Bridge this week they are concerned about the future of the industry.

According to the firm Ad Impact, Trump’s campaign recently debuted an ad in metro Detroit. It begins “attention auto workers” and repeats rhetoric on electric vehicles and trade, falsely claiming that a mandate requiring auto companies to switch to EVs is “crazy but true.”

While there is no mandate for an immediate switch to 100% electric vehicles, automakers have said fuel emissions standards set by the administration of President Joe Biden will force them to convert a sizable portion of their sales to electric by 2032.

Related:

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• Michigan GOP walks fine line on absentee voting, as Trump sends mixed messages
• Donald Trump calls Michigan auto industry an ‘afterthought.’ Here are the facts

Democrats are mounting an organized response to push back against Trump’s arguments, hosting calls with members of Michigan’s congressional delegation and United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Fain touted legislation under Biden that has set aside billions to subsidize domestic electric vehicle manufacturing. 

“They're doing things to protect that work, and they're actually building manufacturing here, they have a plan,” Fain said.

“That's a whole different story than what Donald Trump did when he was president. He did nothing except more of the same. ”

Under Trump, Fain added, “the rich get richer, keep outsourcing our work, and the handful at the top and the shareholders take all the money, and the people that create the wealth, the workers who generate those profits, get left behind.”

In Macomb County billboards are bashing Trump over the closure of Stellantis’ Warren Transmission Plant in 2019, after his first-term promise that no auto factories would close under his tenure as president. 

Other Stellantis facilities in the county have sustained temporary layoffs amid slowing sales and declining profits, though the automaker has also promised to make new investments in existing facilities that will lead to new hires, the Associated Press reported.

Former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also came to Michigan this week as a Trump surrogate to participate in a town hall with supporters just outside Lansing. 

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz plans to be in Ann Arbor Saturday to catch the football game between the University of Michigan and his state’s University of Minnesota.