WASHINGTON — Michigan's U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin stood out last month as the only Senate Democrat to join Republicans in voting to kill California’s influential, nation-leading electric vehicle sales rules.

Her break from other Democrats shocked industry groups — even oil and gas lobbyists — that expected a party-line result on the transformative regulations. But perhaps it shouldn't have been so surprising.

"I think it was very smart politics for Slotkin," said Jason Cabel Roe, a longtime Republican consultant. "This is the kind of position she can take that is popular, with the automakers and the business community and the United Auto Workers and other unions that are affected by the auto industry."

Fresh off a 2024 election cycle filled with GOP attacks over EVs, Slotkin and six other Michigan Democrats in Washington spoke out against California's rules, signaling a shift in how the party talks about a key issue for the state's bellwether auto industry. Political observers said Democrats distancing themselves from harsh EV rules is a smart move on a poignant topic, though the issue may fade as new political battle lines take shape.

"EVs are not popular with voters in this state," said Adrian Hemond, a Democratic political strategist and CEO of the Lansing-based consulting firm Grassroots Midwest. "Not to say that we don't make any EVs here. We do, right? But we make a lot more internal combustion engine cars in Michigan."

Roe, who previously helped run Michigan Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett's campaigns for Congress, gave a similar assessment: "The problem is, the demand isn't there for the product."

"I had to live through the Tom Barrett SOAR votes," he recalled, referencing Michigan's Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve. Democrats hounded Barrett over his opposition to state-sponsored EV investment in 2022, and he eventually lost to Slotkin in a congressional election that year.

Roe added: "But those SOAR investments so far have not returned anywhere near the promise, and I think have gotten, you know, politically toxic."

Vote breakdown

Officially, 11 of Michigan's 15 members of Congress voted to repeal a Biden-era federal waiver that granted California permission to set regulations mandating that 100% of new vehicle sales by 2035 be electrified models. A dozen states — excluding Michigan — previously pledged to adopt the rules, which were scheduled to phase in beginning in 2026.

Even though four members of the delegation voted to keep the waiver, the vote's entanglement with controversy over parliamentary procedure complicated the matter. In all, 14 of 15 voiced opposition to the substantive policy in question. The only one who did not was Democratic U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Detroit.

Republican U.S. Rep. John James helped lead the House effort to cancel California's waiver, which the chamber voted to do on May 1. The Senate followed up with its own vote on May 22.

"I’ve always said, Michigan is not afraid of the future, but we demand to be a part of it. This is not the United States of California; California has no right to dictate what Michigan or the rest of the country does," the Shelby Township lawmaker and state gubernatorial candidate said in a statement following the Senate vote.

Slotkin and other Democratic lawmakers made similar arguments from across the aisle.

"Today, I voted to prevent California and the states that follow its standard from effectively banning gas-powered cars by 2035. Michigan is the auto capital of the world, and as Michigan’s U.S. senator," the Holly lawmaker said after her vote, "I have a special responsibility to stand up for the more than 1 million Michiganders whose livelihoods depend on the U.S. auto industry."

She continued: "As of today, not a single one of these states is anywhere near complying with California’s requirements and some are even reversing course. That means car manufacturers, including the Detroit Three, will be forced to eventually stop the sale of gas-powered cars in these states or pay competitors, particularly Tesla, for credits to remain compliant."

All three major Michigan automakers — General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis NV — have not yet turned a profit on electric vehicles. GM, the EV leader among them, said it became "variable profit positive" on EVs in late 2024. That means, for the first time, vehicle sales proceeds covered the costs of producing them.

Every other Senate Democrat, including Gary Peters of Michigan, voted against the repeal.

Democrats in both the House and Senate for weeks had criticized Republicans' use of the Congressional Review Act to revoke the waiver, suggesting that federal waivers did not fall under the jurisdiction of that law. They further cried foul when Republicans moved ahead despite opinions from nonpartisan congressional offices that the legislation violated existing law.

Slotkin signaled her opposition to the process, but not the substance, by casting 11 procedural votes to stop the Senate from taking up the GOP measure in the first place.

Other Michigan Democrats, like U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, said they opposed California's regulations but voted to preserve them because of how Republicans pursued a repeal.

"Let me be clear: I oppose the California standard because it unfairly targets Michigan manufacturers," she said in a social media post. "I'll continue working to maintain fair vehicle emissions standards that provide the most consistency for our automakers and strengthen our ability to lead the world in vehicle innovation to effectively compete with China."

Stevens, who is running for U.S. Senate, continued: "However, the vote today is more chaos and another abuse of power by President (Donald) Trump, and that's why I voted no."

Michigan Republicans later went after Stevens for her vote, citing an article from right-wing news outlet Breitbart saying that she "doubled down on California's electric vehicle mandate."

'Surprisingly persuasive' issue

Pro-EV policies that Republicans called out as an "electric vehicle mandate" made for a popular — and unexpectedly powerful — source of political jabs at Democrats during the 2024 election cycle.

"I had very low confidence that it was going to be a persuasive message," Roe, the Republican strategist, said of polling on EV-related policies. "The numbers came back, and it was surprisingly persuasive.”

David Shor, a Democratic pollster, said during an on-stage conversation with Slotkin on June 4 that he reached the same conclusion: "People don't like 'Defund the police.' That's not that surprising. But voters really hate electric cars ... they have very strong feelings."

Slotkin pushed back against that notion: "To be clear, they don't hate electric vehicles. They just don't want to be told they have to drive an electric vehicle, particularly when the infrastructure hasn't kept pace."

The newly elected senator frequently had to defend against EV-related attack ads from GOP-aligned groups and her election opponent last year, former Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers of White Lake Township.

"Biden and Harris want to force you to buy an electric car," a narrator said in one of his ads. Rogers, who is again running for Senate in 2026, followed by vowing to "fight against their EV mandates, take on China and save our jobs."

Rogers thrust the topic into the campaign, according to Dave Dulio, a political scientist at Oakland University, because he thought it would be an effective point of contrast with Slotkin. Dulio also noted that Trump deployed the EV mandate tagline often during visits to Michigan.

While Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris avoided discussing EV policies until over a month into her last-minute presidential bid, Slotkin was accustomed to speaking on the matter and fending off criticism.

"No one should tell us what to buy, and no one should mandate anything," she said in one October ad. In the 30-second direct-to-camera spot, Slotkin stood in front of two car haulers loaded with Ford F-150 pickups and one Bronco SUV. Her narration played over all-capitalized text reading: "NO ELECTRIC CAR MANDATES."

But she also nodded to her support for policies that push the auto industry toward electrification: "If there's gonna be a new generation of vehicles, I want that new generation built right here in Michigan, not China."

Slotkin has continued that messaging after narrowly beating Rogers by just over 19,000 votes, or 0.3 percentage points, in the November election.

"I championed concrete policies to accelerate electric vehicle manufacturing in the U.S. — from tax incentives for consumers and manufacturers, to funding for EV charging infrastructure," she said after breaking with her party on the California regulation repeal. "I stand by every one of those votes despite taking tens of millions in attack ads because of those votes."

The Musk effect

After electric vehicles played a surprise star role in 2024, political observers said they doubted the topic would be as prominent in 2026. Experts pointed to more pressing economic uncertainty resulting from Trump's tariff policies, EV policy rollbacks, and the president's once-rosy relationship with Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk.

"I think it was part of a larger message, which was showing the Democrats to be out of touch with normal Americans," Roe explained. He said, for example, that high sticker prices for electric vehicles paired well with voters' concerns about inflation across the economy last year.

Hemond, the Democratic strategist, agreed. But looking ahead, he and others noted potential economic upheaval from Trump's tariff policies that might overshadow debate over EVs.

"The reason why this issue had some bite to it last year was that it's an economic issue, right?" he said in a phone interview. "But the state of the economy overall and how individual voters experience it, that drives voting behavior more than anything else."

Hemond continued: "If (EVs) are a super salient issue in the election next year, it means that the economy overall is doing pretty well. And if it's overtaken by something else, it's going to be because something is wrong in the economy."

Beyond pocketbook considerations, Roe said Republicans could become victims of their own success after successfully repealing the California waiver and pursuing additional rollbacks of Biden-era EV policies. "If the administration changes the regulations, then you kind of take the issue off the table,” he said.

Roe also mentioned Trump and Republicans' complicated relationship with Musk, an EV mogul and the richest man in the world.

“I do think we're in a little more of a pretzel now, because we apparently all love Teslas. So it's a different image,” he said before Musk’s public falling out with Trump.

Hemond, similarly, said before the breakup that the duo's friendship "kicked the legs out of the cultural argument" that EVs were a product only for left-leaning voters who wanted to outlaw gas-powered cars.

Now, post-breakup, the political and cultural position of EVs is murkier. Hemond said it was "too early to say about the Musk stuff and its impact. Rs were already pretty anti-EV and Dems haven't suddenly fallen in love with Tesla again."

Roe, his Republican counterpart, gave a more pithy assessment: "TBD."

©2025 www.detroitnews.com. Visit at detroitnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.