KENOSHA, Wisconsin — Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) predicted he and former President Donald Trump will win a majority of union and nonunion voters in the coming election.
The remarks come a day after United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain attacked Trump and Vance at the Democratic National Convention , calling them “two lapdogs for the billionaire class” and later revealing a “Trump is a scab” shirt.
In response to a question from the Washington Examiner, Vance brushed off the criticism from Fain and predicted that the Trump-Vance ticket would win most union voters.
“Look, I think that my message to Shawn Fain and any other leader of the labor movement — who is the campaign, which campaign is actually going to protect the jobs of American workers, union and nonunion alike? It’s the campaign of Donald J. Trump,” he said.
Republicans have traditionally been adversarial toward labor unions, but Vance has tried a more accommodating approach.
Vance drew headlines last year when he visited a picket line of striking autoworkers. The visit came during contentious negotiations between the UAW and the “Big Three” automakers: Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis.
Vance said he thinks a majority of autoworkers will back Trump for the same reason a majority of manufacturers will: the campaign’s prioritization of protecting domestic jobs and imposing tariffs on products from China.
“He's the one who's saying, if the Chinese want to use slave labor and then import stuff into our country, we’re going to put tariffs on the stuff they make with slave labor, and we're going to protect the job of the American workers,” Vance said.
Vance also hit Vice President Kamala Harris’s support for the Biden administration's efficiency and emissions rules for automobiles, which he characterized as an electric vehicle mandate that will cause jobs to be shipped overseas to China, which produces large numbers of cheap EVs.
“I think people ought to be able to drive whatever the hell they want because this is the United States of America — we don't tell people what to do,” Vance said. “But importantly, if we don't tell people what to do, they're gonna be able to buy cars that are made in America with American workers doing the jobs.”
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“And that is why I think we're gonna win the majority of union and nonunion workers in this country, whatever Shawn Fain says. If you listen to his membership, they are behind Donald J. Trump,” he added.
Vance made the remarks at a press conference in Kenosha, Wisconsin, focused on supporting law enforcement and preventing crime.
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