WARREN, Michigan — The United Auto Workers has held rallies, solicited door-to-door canvassers and brought on members to make calls to support the candidates it's endorsed this election — topped by Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for president. But some are less than enthused.

"They won't say it in public that they're voting for Trump this time," said Rachel Smokovitz, a 25-year UAW member who works as a team leader at Stellantis NV's Warren Truck Assembly Plant, about some of her coworkers. "They just don't want to take the backlash. I'm able to debate, back up my position and explain why. A lot of people aren't well-versed like that, but privately, they tell me, 'I am voting for Trump.' It's overwhelming, especially with the UAW."

In the politically divided state of Michigan, it matters how the United Auto Workers talks to its members about the Nov. 5 election. Leaders at the international union, including President Shawn Fain, have called Republican nominee Donald Trump a scab and appeared alongside Harris on the campaign trail. The UAW hasn't shared numbers on how its members are voting, but some wonder if the aggressive anti-Trump campaign is pushing Trump-supporting members away, causing tensions within the Detroit-based union.

"Many labor union members are inherently conservative and have inherently conservative views of cultural issues, of labor issues, and of course, their No. 1 goal is to do the best for themselves and their families in terms of wages and benefits," said Mike Smith, former director of Wayne State University's Walter P. Reuther Library. "There may be more hard feelings toward union leadership."

At the end of the day, though, he said: "What speaks the loudest is when UAW members and union members have greater contracts than nonunion members."

The UAW endorsed Harris in August and launched what it called its "most ambitious political program in decades" in support of her "around a pro-worker, anti-corporate greed agenda."

Zakiyyah “Karmel” Hassan, a Local 1700 member working out of Stellantis’ Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, on Thursday was working the phones at the UAW Region 1 office in Warren. There, members make calls and grab materials to knock on doors to engage with other active and retired members about the election.

She's supporting Harris for president and likes the door-knocking job since she can get out and talk to other members. She even believes she may have changed some minds in the process — or at least made them think more about the choices.

"This is history-making," Hassan said about the election. "The main thing is the UAW is providing that information gateway for people to make an informed decision. And I'm proud to be a part of that."

To Hassan, an 11-year union member, Harris stands with labor: “I do believe that she does support us way more than he (Trump) does. He manipulates and puts a façade. I'm just not buying into that.”

Varying views

The UAW secured record contracts with the Detroit Three automakers last year that included 27% wage hikes over four years, the reinstatement of cost-of-living adjustments, a shorter timeline to the top pay and other benefits. That, however, doesn't matter much if workers find themselves out of a job.

Stellantis indefinitely has laid off 1,100 people at Warren Truck, which was less than half previously expected, but local union leadership said more could be coming. The automaker ended production of the Ram 1500 Classic truck there, leaving the plant with just the Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer SUVs. Separately, the union has said the company is planning to move overflow production of the latest-generation Ram 1500 pickup to Mexico, though no formal announcement has been made, and the company has said it will abide by its contract terms. Workers at Warren feel like they've missed out.

Trump during a visit to the Detroit Economic Club last week rolled out new details of a plan he said would seek to revive the auto industry, including reforming the 2020 trade agreement he signed with Mexico and Canada, imposing larger tariffs, implementing tax breaks to encourage investment and making auto loan interest deductible.

"A lot of people are backing Trump, because he's promised tariffs," said Eric Graham, president of UAW Local 140 that represents workers at Warren Truck. "If those types of tariffs are imposed onto Mexico, they think Ram overflow could come back to the United States, and we might have an opportunity to get it. Their main thing is: Why isn't the UAW backing that?"

Graham, who supports Harris, however, noted: "He's proven to me he hasn't kept his word."

But Trump voters like Smokovitz, who has supported the former president in the most recent three elections, say Trump's administration offered security from the efforts to address illegal immigration on the U.S. southern border to shoring up gasoline reserves.

The 46-year-old Northville resident wishes the union had polled members like the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which opted not to endorse a presidential candidate this election. In 2016, the UAW said one in four members supported Trump in an internal survey.

"He turned a lot of things around," Smokovitz said of Trump. "He put the tariffs in place to keep our jobs here. He was trying to secure the border. I like how safe the country felt."

She's attended some Stand Up Michigan events and discusses politics with colleagues like Derek Sheppard, a UAW representative at the Warren plant and a 28-year union member. Sheppard has gone door-to-door with the union and supports Harris, since she joined the UAW on the picket line in 2019, for her support of abortion access and for policy proposals. Those include extending the child tax credit and $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers.

"Both times, she just captivated the crowd," Sheppard, 54, of Warren, said about seeing Harris speak at two rallies. "Her policies look like they’re going to be for the working person, and not the rich person."

There, however, are vastly different perceptions of where their colleagues stand. Graham suggests a 60%-40% split in favor of Harris at Warren Truck. Sheppard puts it at 80%-20%, while Smokovitz feels a majority of her colleagues support Trump.

'They cannot do what we do'

The UAW didn't make Fain available for an interview for this story.

Labor unions represent 20% of the overall vote on average in swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, said Liz Shuler. She's president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or the AFL-CIO, a federation of 60 national and international labor unions that represents more than 12.5 million working people.

The AFL-CIO has put more than 32,000 volunteer shifts in these key states and contacted 1.6 million voters in-person with plans to reach 5 million more voters in 10 battleground states. There are roughly 350,000 active and retired UAW members in Michigan.

The AFL-CIO did a poll of union workers to see who their most trusted source was for politics and the answer was their union, Shuler said on a call with reporters on Friday.

“That kind of trust is impossible to just manufacture,” she said. “You've probably seen (Tesla Inc. CEO) Elon Musk, who is grabbing headlines, becoming the campaign apparatus for Trump, using all of his money to hire people to try to drive turnout for the campaign. But even with all the money in the world, they cannot do what we do. They don't have the battle scars from decades of organizing and canvassing and making these calls.”

The financial elements of the UAW's political programming aren't completely clear. The union hasn't yet filed its mandatory federal campaign finance disclosure for the most recent reporting period and didn't respond to multiple requests about the filing.

As of July, the UAW was behind its usual pace of political giving, according to data from OpenSecrets. The union spent a total of about $8.8 million to support Democrats in 2020 elections. It only had spent about $2.4 million by August, per its most recent Federal Elections Commission filing and a reported $1.5 million pledge to the Democratic National Committee in August.

"Take it as a given that about a third of the members are going to vote against the leadership," said Marick Masters, a management professor at Wayne State University. "The challenge for it is now: How much of that other two-thirds can it get out to vote, or can it get that one-third from becoming closer to one-half?"

Several Michigan lawmakers strongly aligned with the UAW have projected confidence about how the pro-Harris efforts are going. Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Lansing, who is retiring this year after serving in the Senate since 2001, told The Detroit News that she is "really impressed" with Fain and the union's political organizing.

"They are bringing a lot of energy, higher energy than I've seen in some other cycles," she said. "They're doing a great job of targeting and really putting their door-to-door resources into areas where they can have the biggest difference."

At the UAW Region 1 office, Beth Morrow, a 23-year union member who works at General Motor Co.'s Factory Zero, was working last week with others to get more volunteers to canvass for the region's Community Action Program, which started in early September. She said the work has helped the people they engage vote for Harris

Morrow said she’s always been an independent, but has never supported Trump. She doesn’t like “his platform, his arrogance” and his spreading of "misinformation."

“I always felt that I would vote for who I feel would do the best job," she said about supporting Harris. "I feel that she's supporting labor, and I think she'd do the best job."

Autoworkers pointed to Trump's recent comments during a Tuesday appearance at the Chicago Economic Club where the GOP nominee said vehicle assembly using already-manufactured parts was a simple task: “They take them out of a box, and they assemble them. We could have a child do it."

At Harris' campaign stop at UAW Local 652 in Lansing on Friday, Art Reyes, an electrician at GM's Flint Assembly Plant, said he votes his pocketbook and has been door-knocking for Harris. The 57-year-old Grand Blanc resident said he feels Harris is garnering more excitement from voters than Hillary Clinton in 2016 or President Joe Biden in 2020.

“In 2020, they were looking for a return to normalcy,” he said. “It wasn’t the enthusiasm that I’m seeing. Now people genuinely seem to be excited about Harris’ candidacy.”

For all the divisiveness politics can deliver, UAW members on both sides said they see the attention Michigan is getting from both the Democratic and Republican tickets as a good thing for their union. Rene LaCross can be found proudly wearing pro-Trump attire to work at General Motors Co.’s Davison Road Processing Center in Burton outside Flint. Still, he was happy to see UAW Local 651 President Eric Price introducing Harris at a campaign rally event in early October.

“For our local to be there as a whole, we are on the map," LaCross said. "That is me. That represents me, so regardless of what his views and my views are, I can draw the curtain there and say I support Eric Price to introduce the vice president of the United States because that is a proud moment."

However, the 40-year-old autoworker from Flint said he felt his pro-Trump comments on the local’s Facebook have been censored.

“They have the right to say who they support, but they don't have the right to say who the UAW membership supports because not all do,” he said. “The UAW supports the party, not the policy. That's why a lot of people that I've talked to don't follow what the UAW says.”

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