DETROIT – Michigan has been a focus of the 2026 election campaign with Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s successful, relentless hate campaign against President Trump, police, AIPAC, and the state of Israel.
But the political smoke has obscured significant Midwest progress driven by Trump Administration and Republican congressional efforts on auto deregulation, tariffs, and crime in a reversal of disastrous Democrat Party policies.
The rollback of the Biden Administration’s electric vehicle mandates has stopped the financial hemorrhaging that reached $52 billion in losses last year for Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis combined. The Trump Administration’s tariffs — focused on bringing manufacturing like autos back from China, Mexico, and Canada — have yielded major plant announcements totaling thousands of jobs. Resisting El-Sayed’s battle cry to defund the police, Detroit has done the opposite, stepping up police presence in the crime-plagued city to reduce crime in sync with national trends.
Auto Manufacturing
“Never has someone in the Oval Office fought for us and understood our situation as well as President Trump,” said former Detroit Three autoworker and Autoworkers for Trump founder Brian Pannebecker in an interview, pointing out that eliminating the electric vehicle (EV) mandate was job #1 for workers. “He calls me up on stage when he comes to town and I speak on behalf of my co-workers. I talk to a lot of those guys on a regular basis and we’re extremely happy with his policies.”
Trump came to the GM Proving Grounds in Milford this summer for a victory lap.
His historic visit — the first by a U.S. President to the General’s 4,400-acre R&D facility — celebrated the success of Republican deregulation that has allowed auto companies to re-invest in internal-combustion-engine vehicles customers want.
“Sir, you’ve exceeded expectations,” said Pannebecker on the Milford stage. “You saved our domestic auto industry.”
Trump summarized the administration’s achievements since 2025: “I terminated Biden’s disastrous CAFE fuel standards. You know what that is? That was a short road to bankruptcy for every single car company in this country and a total disaster that would have killed the internal combustion engine. They wanted it dead within five years. As long as I’m president, that will never happen.”
Key to rolling back the EV mandate was dismissing Obama-Biden Era mpg diktats and passing congressional legislation pushed by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin which eliminated California’s exemption to set emissions standards. No previous Republican administration had dared take down the California exemption, long a distortion of the U.S. auto market.
The Golden State’s draconian emissions standards would have forced auto companies to sell 35 percent EV product by 2026 or pay $20,000 for every car under the mandate — crippling companies with billions in fines.
Auto Tariffs
Trump also pointed to tariff policies that have returned auto production to the U.S., including truck/SUV model lines in Kansas City, Illinois, and Metro Detroit’s Lake Orion GM plant. Toyota and Lincoln model lines are also returning from Mexico and China, respectively, while Stellantis — fined billions for making V-8 engines under Biden’s EPA — has seen its profits surge.
“Michigan has been among the states hardest hit by tariffs because of the impact on automakers, a pillar of the economy,” claimed The New York Times after the Milford event. “Tariffs have siphoned off money they could be using to invest in new car designs and new technologies.”
That’s false. Automakers have reported tariff costs to their supply chains, but they have been offset by billions in regulatory cost reductions now that the companies don’t have to meet federal and California EV mandates.
“An entire shift could be coming back to Warren truck plant . . .bringing back heavy-duty (truck) production that moved to Mexico about eight years ago,” said Pannebecker. “Belvedere, Illinois, is getting Jeep product back in it (from Canada) . . . to build mid-size SUVs.”
The Made in America success story has been bipartisan (even Trump critic and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker hailed Jeep’s return to Belvedere) and got another boost last week with Audi’s announcement of a $4 billion SUV manufacturing plant in Georgia.
Crime Down
Violent crime in Detroit was down 9 percent this summer from a year ago, with homicides dipping 25 percent. The drop in crime represents a trend since 2020 when crime spiked during the defund the police movement supported by El-Sayed and other Michigan Democrats.
“I believe we need to defund the police insofar as defunding the police is disinvesting in the means of incarcerating someone,” said El-Sayed in 2020.
Coupled with the success of local Michigan law enforcement has been a 43 percent increase in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests of illegal aliens — 35 percent of them with criminal records or arrests. The ICE campaign has been vigorously opposed by state Democrats.
Michigan’s good news dovetails with a national drop after crime surged under the Biden Administration.
The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reports the rate of violent crime (excluding simple assault) declined 25 percent, from 9.9 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older in 2024 to 7.4 per 1,000 in 2025.
Michigan voters face challenges brought on by a succession of Democratic governors that have driven up energy prices and depressed business. But the last two years of federal accomplishments have been a boon.