‘Battery-powered vehicles will leave citizens broke’ GOP seizes on voter hesitancy to attack EVs
WASHINGTON, Nov 1, (AP): Heading into next week’s midterm elections, many Republican candidates are seeking to capitalize on voters’ concerns about inflation by vilifying a key component of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda: electric vehicles.
On social media, in political ads and at campaign rallies, Republicans say Democrats’ push for battery-powered transportation will leave Americans broke, stranded on the road and even in the dark. Many of the attack lines are not true - the auto industry itself has largely embraced a shift to EVs, for instance, and some Republican lawmakers are quick to cheer the opening of EV battery plants in the U.S. that promise new jobs.
But political analysts say the GOP messaging exploits voter hesitancy on EVs that may have put Democrats on the defensive at a time when Americans are especially feeling a financial pinch. EVs cost $65,000 on average, a fact GOP candidates cite.
More than two-thirds of Americans say they are unlikely to purchase an electric vehicle in the next three years, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Democrats are twice as likely to say they plan to purchase one as Republicans, 37% to 16%, respectively.
“There’s still lots of selling to do before EVs catch on with the American people,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and longtime staffer to the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. He described early Democratic messaging suggesting that EVs were an immediate solution to rising gasoline prices as a mistake. “That creates an opening for Republicans in this election, which begins and ends with the economy and inflation.”
In a key Iowa House race, an ad by a Republican-aligned group features a man standing beside a pickup truck as he calls Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne and the Biden administration “clueless and out of touch” for supporting “expensive” electric vehicles with batteries currently made in
China.
In competitive Nevada, GOP Senate candidate Adam Laxalt mocks Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s support for her party’s sweeping climate and health law, which includes tax credits to purchase EVs. Laxalt warns that Nevada drivers will have to forgo charging their EVs during extreme heat to avoid straining the power grid.
The issue has also become a flashpoint in governors’ races in states such as Michigan, Minnesota and California, where Democratic incumbents have defended their support for a rapid transition to EVs - California set a goal for all new vehicles to be electric or plug-in hybrid by 2035 - and grappled with questions over how to pay for charging stations and road upgrades as gasoline tax revenue begins to decline.
Gasoline prices
Even with higher gasoline prices, the inexorable march to an all-electric future faces challenges, none of which will be resolved before the midterm elections that will decide control of a closely-divided Congress.
Hindered by supply chain shortages and manufacturing that currently depends on battery parts made mostly in China, electric vehicles are in the cost range of luxury cars and remain out of reach for most U.S. households. That has Republicans hitting harder on prices - former President Donald Trump riffs frequently that EVs will lead to the demise of the U.S. auto industry - and Democrats talking up recent drops in gas prices and jobs created by EVs and other clean energy. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy pledges an agenda of increased U.S. oil drilling and undoing Biden’s climate and health law if his party retakes the chamber.
As president, Biden racked up congressional wins that included sending $7.5 billion to states to build out a national highway network of up to 500,000 EV charging stations. Democrats’ climate and health law also extends tax credits of up to $7,500 starting next year to consumers to purchase EVs.