How does someone who makes cars they will never be able to buy vote? In Detroit, Donald Trump and Joe Biden fought hard to win the working-class, mostly white, vote.

The two candidates are fighting “to appeal to working-class voters, especially whites,” a group that will play a key role in the presidential election, Vanderbilt University professor Jefferson Cowie said in an interview with NPR radio.

“Will they be drawn to Trump’s usual rhetoric, especially around race and nation? Or are we going to see a movement much more oriented (…) toward Biden’s vision, that’s really the key question,” he added.

Snubbing the second presidential debate, the former president chose to visit an auto parts factory near Detroit on Wednesday.

Trump estimated that it doesn’t matter if the strikers reach a profitable deal with the automakers because due to the shift to electric vehicles, their jobs will soon be eliminated.

“It doesn’t make any difference what you achieve because in two years you will all be out of work”, he stressed, speaking of “killing your jobs”. “I will always be here for you,” the billionaire Republican promised.

On the other hand, Biden – who attaches particular importance to support for unions – became the first American president to participate in picketing strikes.

Biden briefly joined the United Auto Workers (UAW) union on Tuesday in front of the General Motors plant in Belleville, Detroit.

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Biden or Trump? After all, who does the working class prefer?

“The cost of buying a new car is equivalent to half of my annual income,” says Mr Curtis Cranford, 66-year-old laborer on strike who shook Biden’s hand.

He thanked the US president for coming to see the strikers, but criticized the climate transition that “will cost jobs” and especially the Democrats’ views on abortion and immigration. “I’ll probably vote Republican» in the 2024 elections, he explains.

That means he will vote for Donald Trump, the favorite to win the party’s nomination.

THE Carolyn Nipa, 51, 26 of whom work at GM, he still can’t believe he greeted him. “It was surreal.”

“I do not support Trump, I say that clearly. I believe he worked for multinationals and on behalf of billionaires,” he said.

THE Pam, 72, instead she believes her salvation will come from Trump.

“The cost of living has skyrocketed, and it’s all because of these electric cars and this damn ‘Green New Deal,'” the retired hairdresser complains, waiting to applaud the Republican.

Nearby the Jerry Henley, a 33-year-old engineer, comments: “I look at my paycheck and wonder: where did my money go? They just send them to Ukraine.” He is not interested in electric cars: “I will use gasoline until I die.”

“It’s hard to say,” she says 44-year-old Christy Zometsky participating in the strike. “This strike is not really a political issue,” he explains. Like all the strikers in the car industry he prefers to talk about the sacrifices they made in 2009 to support the multinationals.

But after this economic and fiscal crisis Sarah Polk wonders: “Who really supports us?”.

Biden’s visit, like Trump’s “was a communication move”, estimates the 53-year-old mother of three children, whom she raises alone. Previously “I was probably with the Democrats”, but now “I don’t know”.