Barack Obama, Michigan | featured news

President Barack Obama says right-to-work legislation in Michigan is more about politics than economics. He is criticizing a measure that would prevent requiring non-union employees to financially support unions at their workplace.

"If he [Obama] didn't come through and give that vote and say, 'Yes we have got to save Chrysler. We have to save GM. We've got to do this,' all this Sterling Heights would have been gone, would have been dead."

While nationally the two rivals are locked in a dead heat, in 12 expected battleground states — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin — Obama leads by eight points in the survey.

The poll follows a recent trend showing Romney catching up to Obama in Michigan, where he had trailed badly. Romney said this week that if he can win Michigan, where he was born and raised, he could capture the presidency. Michigan has gone for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since backing Republican George H.W. Bush in 1988.

In seeking support in Michigan, Obama speaks frequently about how the federal bailout of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group led to GM's resurgence as the world's No. 1 automaker and 32,000 more auto-related jobs in the state since the companies emerged from their 2009 managed bankruptcies. Romney opposed the move, even writing a New York Times opinion piece in 2008 that carried the headline "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

The super PAC behind President Obama is on the air in Michigan today with an ad slamming Mitt Romney and his opposition to the auto industry ...