Could Biden see 2024 payoff over UAW-Big 3 labor deals?

When President Biden joined striking United Auto Workers (UAW) members on the picket line in Michigan this past September, he lauded himself as "the most pro-union president in American history." Now, as UAW leadership solidifies tentative labor deals with all of the Big Three automakers — Ford (F), General Motors (GM), Stellantis (STLA) — could Biden stand to benefit from agreements?

Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman outlines whether Biden's union stance could have a payoff in the form of his re-election odds in 2024 and the next action he could take to carry his momentum over to other swing state voters.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

JOSH LIPTON: Moving on, when President Biden flew to Michigan in late September to cheer on striking autoworkers, political analysts declared it a historic and risky maneuver.

Critics blasted him for picking sides while he claimed to be the most pro-union president ever.

Now it seems politically the move has paid off.

Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman has more.

RICK NEWMAN: Hey, guys.

That is one of the first things I thought of when I heard about the UAW settlement.

We don't have final ratification yet, but it looks like there is a deal.

And the workers are going to go back to work without too much real damage to the economy.

I thought about Biden making that trip up there.

He went to a picket line.

He was only on the picket line itself for about 15 minutes.

But I think that was a pretty good investment of 15 minutes, because Biden, you know, he picked sides in a way-- and he picked the winning side here.

And there were undoubtedly political calculations to him thinking maybe I should go to Michigan-- Michigan and maybe even more importantly, Wisconsin right next door.

Both likely swing states in 2024.

Swing states means that if you could just get a fraction of the vote, could be 1% or less to side one way or the other, that could tip the election.

So Biden can now say, hey, I stood side by side with the union workers.

Union workers are going to see bigger paychecks in 2024.

That is going to be good for him.

And meanwhile, what did President Trump do around the same time?

He went up to Michigan.

He did not address Union workers.

He gave a speech at a non-union auto factory.

He said a bunch of really weird stuff, such as he had been trashing the UAW boss, saying he's not doing a good job.

He said all your jobs are going to disappear.

The jobs are all going to go to China.

And he described electric vehicles as a transition to hell.

Well, guess what?

Electric vehicles now seem to be included in some of the forthcoming union contracts.

So Biden played this one pretty well.

And I think we need to watch for developments in unionization in 2024.

The UAW President Shawn Fain says he's going to target non-union automakers, including Tesla.

See if he can get some of those unionized.

And this is happening at a time when Americans actually are pretty well-disposed toward unions.

They like the fact that workers are getting a little bit more power.

So this seems to be one trend that might work in Biden's favor going into 2024.

DIANE KING HALL: So, yeah, Rick, you and I have talked about this before.

There does seem to be this kind of labor uprising that we've seen across a variety of industries.

What should we be paying attention to next on the union front?

RICK NEWMAN: Well, Biden needs to be able to claim success.

I mean, he says himself, he describes himself as the most pro-union President in American history.

And he needs to be able to say that actually counts for something.

And I think what this victory and other unionization efforts, he will be able to say that.

That doesn't mean problem solved, though.

Biden is under water in terms of his overall approval rating.

And he gets even lower approval for his handling of the economy.

So he really needs to get that up if he really wants to have a good shot at re-election next year.

But again, I want to go back to Biden's re-election odds don't depend so much on what the national attitude is toward his handling of the economy.

It depends on the attitude of swing voters in swing states.

And there are only four or five, maybe six of them.

And Michigan is one.

Wisconsin is one.

Pennsylvania, some think could be another swing state.

And if people in those states think Biden's really going to bat for workers and they are seeing that their own paychecks maybe are starting to get a little bit ahead of inflation, that would be good news for Biden.

But we got to see it happen first.

For the moment, Americans are pretty dour on the economy.

JOSH LIPTON: Rick Newman, thank you so much for joining us today.

Rick, have a great weekend.

RICK NEWMAN: You, too, guys.

See you.