This article was first published in the On the Trail 2024 newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox on Tuesday and Friday mornings here.
Good morning and welcome to On the Trail 2024, the Deseret News’ campaign newsletter. I’m Suzanne Bates, Deseret’s national politics editor. I’m filling in for Samuel Benson since he is out on assignment — although he provided much of the content below the Big Idea. He’ll be back next week with on-the-ground coverage in California for the next Republican debate.
But first, the latest from the Deseret News’ 2024 election coverage:
- Everything you need to know about Hunter Biden by Gitanjali Poonia
- Biden’s chance at reelection and his United Nations speech by Emma Pitts
- Is a swing-state GOP chair trying to game the election for Trump? by Samuel Benson
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hints at 3rd-party presidential run by Samuel Benson
- Kari Lake takes the stage in Utah to back Trent Staggs, addresses Senate and VP rumors by Suzanne Bates
The Big Idea
Trump will skip GOP debate, try to woo striking UAW workers instead
Former President Donald Trump is not expected to show up for next week’s Republican debate. Instead, he’ll be in Detroit on Wednesday, where he’ll speak to past and current unionized auto workers.
The UAW went on strike last week, shutting down plants run by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, which are all owned by parent company Stellantis.
The strike has proven to be a sticky situation for President Joe Biden, who has called himself “the most pro-union president in American history.”
But Biden could face blowback if the strike slows down the economy. On the flip side, he risks angering workers on the picket line if he looks like he’s trying to force an end to the strike.
Biden announced Friday he will visit the striking auto workers on Tuesday, the day before Trump’s visit.
“Tuesday, I’ll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create,” he wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “It’s time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs.”
Also on Friday, the UAW announced the strike was expanding to include another 5,600 workers on top of the 13,000 who’ve been on strike since Sept. 15.
Unions and unionized workers are a key constituency of Biden’s. They give him and other Democrats millions of dollars in donations, and they also help turn out Democratic voters.
Meanwhile, Democrats worry what Trump’s visit to union workers in Michigan could mean for Biden’s reelection chances.
“We should not underestimate Donald Trump. He’s a survivor and this is going to be a very hard-fought campaign,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., told Politico. “We need a message to working-class Americans. Right now, they’re still hurting in terms of gas prices, food prices, housing costs, utilities costs, and they don’t feel like their wages are going up fast enough, and they feel like the very wealthy are getting too much of the rewards. That’s what I heard on the picket lines.”
A Deseret News/HarrisX poll from earlier this year showed Trump is the preferred candidate of the working class, but while union workers helped Trump win in 2016, in 2020 a majority of union households voted for Biden.
Trump hopes to reverse those numbers in 2024.
Which brings up another reason Trump is headed to Detroit instead of the Republican debate in Simi Valley, California — he’s hoping to make the point that the race is over, and he’s ready to take on Biden.
After the debate, polls will show whether or not this was a smart move.
Poll pulse
At the first GOP debate last month, candidates were not shy in proposing aggressive measures for border security and immigration enforcement. The issue will surely come up again next week.
A new poll from KFF and the Los Angeles Times adds another dimension to the conversation. The poll has a sample size of 3,358 immigrants living around the U.S., and they were asked about their reasons for coming to the America, along with their successes and challenges since living here.
Some of the data is disheartening. A third of all respondents say they’ve been told to “go back where you came from,” including nearly half of Black immigrants (45%). Significant shares also reported experiencing discrimination in a store or restaurant (27%), with police (21%) or when buying or renting a home (17%).
But the most interesting data point, to me? Asked if they could go back in time, knowing what they know now, 75% say they’d still choose to come to the United States again.
Ad of the week
The Lincoln Project launched a new, pro-Biden ad campaign this week. The TV advertisement, “American Story,” launches in swing-state Wisconsin and will “expand in the following weeks,” Lincoln Project creative director Michelle Kinney said.
It’s the first of the organization’s ad blitzes in the 2024 cycle, and it marks a sharp deviation from its 2020 ads. The Lincoln Project was formed in 2019 by Republicans and former Republicans to prevent Trump’s reelection, and its ads during the election cycle were all focused on attacking Trump and his record in the White House. (A Lincoln Project founder once admitted that the ads had an “audience of one”: Trump himself.) Trump isn’t mentioned once in this new ad, nor are any of his Republican challengers; instead, it’s all Biden. It will be interesting to monitor the Lincoln Project’s strategy throughout.
Weekend reads
A superb profile of Arthur Brooks, the “happiness guru” at The Atlantic and the former president of AEI. (He’s a great friend of Utah and Latter-day Saints, too.) He stepped down from his post at American Enterprise Institute shortly after Trump took office and has found a post-political niche, of sorts: writing a weekly column on good living, teaching seminars at Harvard and the University of Utah, and solidifying himself as hundreds of thousands of Americans’ go-to expert on being happier. He Once Ran the Most Powerful Conservative Think Tank in D.C. Now He’s a Self-Help Guru Writing Books with Oprah (Ian Ward, Politico magazine)
Nikki Haley appears to be running her campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris, instead of targeting President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. Democrats have long chalked up attacks on Harris to racism or sexism. But when Haley — a women of color — makes the arguments, it becomes more complicated. Nikki Haley wants to make the presidential race about Kamala Harris. (Maeve Reston and Marisa Iati, Washington Post)
My colleagues Lois Collins and Laura Seitz wrote a beautiful and compelling piece about one of the first hospices in the country that is specifically for people who are homeless. It’s located in Salt Lake City, and Lois and Laura spent a year-and-a-half sitting with and photographing residents and their families as they come to terms with death. It’s the place where no one dies alone, and the stories of the residents will stay with you. (Lois Collins, Laura Seitz, Deseret News)
Friday mailbag
Have a question you’d like me to answer in next Friday’s newsletter? Send it along to onthetrail@deseretnews.com. Let’s talk policy, polling, candidates ... anything election-related.
This week’s question comes from Jan B: “Do you think Trump’s comments on abortion will hurt him with Republican voters?”
Time will tell if Trump’s equivocation on abortion on “Meet the Press” last Sunday will hurt him with Republican voters, many of whom describe themselves as pro-life.
Our Deseret News colleague Jennifer Graham had a smart take on this question.
She says Trump’s statement that Republicans are “not going to win on this issue” if they take a hard line makes sense to some analysts:
Social scientist Ryan Burge noted that the composition of the GOP is in flux, and 44% of Republicans seldom or never attend church. Burge wrote for Politico last week that Trump “can afford some erosion of his support from evangelicals” and said Sunday that Trump’s position is “strategically beneficial.”
But the Rev. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said Monday on his podcast that if the GOP backs away from abortion as a key issue — if it “loses its pro-life convictions” — he believes “you’re going to see conservative Christians just back out of support for the Republican Party.”
Anything you’d like to see from our campaign coverage? Drop me a line: onthetrail@deseretnews.com.
See you on the trail.
Editor’s Note: The Deseret News is committed to covering issues of substance in the 2024 presidential race from its unique perspective and editorial values. Our team of political reporters will bring you in-depth coverage of the most relevant news and information to help you make an informed decision. Find our complete coverage of the election here.