Biden visits autoworkers in Michigan amid protests planned over Gaza

[February 01, 2024]  By Nandita Bose and Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON/
MICHIGAN (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden will visit autoworkers in Michigan on Thursday, where he is likely to face protests over his handling of the war in Gaza, after several leaders of the state's Arab-American community declined to meet his campaign team last week.

Biden's travel to the battleground state was intended as a celebration after the United Auto Workers Union recently endorsed his re-election bid. But his trip may be overshadowed by opposition from the state's Arab American and Muslim population, which is upset the president has not called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict.

The Biden campaign has kept details of the president's visit private in the face of expected protests.

Biden is expected to attend the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Thursday before heading to Michigan. He will meet with United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, who has offered a full throated endorsement of the Democratic incumbent while heaping criticism on Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.

The auto industry and its labor movement are deeply intertwined with politics and elections in Michigan. In 2016, Trump earned a level of support from union members that no Republican had reached since Ronald Reagan, helping him narrowly capture critical states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Biden rebounded with unions in 2020, with a roughly 16-percentage-point advantage as he reclaimed those so-called Rust Belt states, which have been scarred by decades of job losses as companies embraced lower-cost, often nonunion locations. He won Michigan in 2020 by some 154,000 votes.

U.S. President Joe Biden joins striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) on the picket line outside the GM's Willow Run Distribution Center, in Belleville, Wayne County, Michigan, U.S., September 26, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo

Arab Americans account for 5% of the vote in Michigan and Biden's margin of victory over Trump was less than 3% in 2020. An October poll showed Biden's support among Arab Americans had plunged to 17% from 59% in 2020.

However, the Biden campaign believes that his support from union workers could overcome any drop in support from the Arab-American community. A Biden campaign official said this endorsement will mean more in November in Michigan than the anger among Muslim voters in the state.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer warned on Face the Nation on Sunday that Biden could face demonstrators during his trip. Multiple pro-Palestinian groups and individuals, including Muslim Americans, Jewish Americans and anti-war organizations have pledged to protest his visit.

More than 100 people participated on Wednesday in a rally at a local high school in Dearborn, many wearing traditional Palestinian scarves known as keffiyehs and holding signs that said "Abandon Biden."

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington and Andrea Shalal in Michigan; Editing by Heather Timmons, Paul Thomasch and Michael Perry)

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