President Joe Biden may have locked his last big union holdout.

No less than 17 different unions endorsed Biden in June, including most of the big names and acronyms of organized labor. Notably absent was the Detroit-based United Auto Workers, but it appears Biden is reeling in that big fish.

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"It was a standup strike,” UAW President Shawn Fain said Thursday at an auto plant in Belvidere, Illinois. “What saved Belvidere was UAW workers all over the country willing to do whatever it takes, workers who were fed up with going backwards, workers who were willing to stand up and take back their lives."

Also speaking at the plant? Biden, who participated in the strike and was in town to celebrate a new UAW contract that includes historic pay raises for workers. The president told reporters he wasn't worried about an endorsement but sounded triumphant while speaking.

"I've been involved in UAW longer than you've been alive, man!" Biden told the crowd after donning a red UAW T-shirt. "You saved the auto industry. They should step up for you."

Fain still has not endorsed Biden for reelection. Still, their joint appearance may indicate the closing of a rift between the two that former President Donald Trump tried to exploit.

The UAW held out its endorsement over concerns that Biden's heavy electric vehicle push could leave its workers fried. Trump then stepped in to say the union should back him instead.

"I think you'd better endorse Trump because I'm going to grow your business, and they are destroying your business," Trump said in July.

That was never going to happen. Fain had already said another Trump presidency would be a "disaster." But plenty of rank-and-file union members will still back the Republicans.

According to Edison research, Biden won 57% of union households nationwide in 2020 compared to 40% for Trump. That was twice the margin of Hillary Clinton's union edge in 2016.

Now Trump and Biden are fighting over the blue-collar workers who will decide swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Trump won each of those states en route to a massive upset seven years ago, then Biden took them back in 2020 to hand the White House to the Democrats.

Andy Levin, a former Michigan Democratic member of Congress and union ally, previously told the Washington Examiner that Biden picked up on some of Trump's 2016 innovations, mostly keeping his trade tariffs in place, for example, while adding a $1.2 trillion infrastructure law that will boost union labor.

Trump is now leaning into the electric vehicle spat to boost his blue-collar appeal.

"The auto industry is being assassinated," Trump said at a Michigan rally in September. "It's a hit job on Michigan and on Detroit. ... All of these cars will be manufactured in foreign lands that you couldn't care less about."

Audience members hoisted "Union Members for Trump" signs.

A spate of recent polls could spell trouble for Biden as well.

A New York Times-Siena College survey released last weekend showed Biden losing to Trump in five of six swing states, including Michigan. Emerson College polling of the same states released Thursday had Trump besting Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin, while Biden led Trump in Michigan.

A look at the cross tabulations may identify the kind of voters Trump has in mind. In that state, his overall edge in the New York Times poll was 48% to 43%. Among white voters without a college degree, Trump led 61% to 32%, a 29-point edge.

“There has been a huge disconnect between inside-the-beltway union leaders and rank-and-file union members,” said Dan Bowling, who teaches labor and employment courses at Duke University. “They’ve almost lost, and maybe for good, the white blue-collar population in the Midwest, which is the basis of the unions.”

Bowling points out that the polls were taken after the successful UAW strike finished, meaning any boost that will come from it is already included.

"A lot of the union workers are MAGA people — let’s get real," he said.

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Nonetheless, in an election expected to have extremely close margins, Biden's consistent efforts to snag union votes could win over enough for a second term. On Thursday in Illinois, he shot back at his rival.

"When my predecessor was in office, six factories closed across the country," Biden said. "Tens of thousands of auto jobs were lost nationwide, and on top of that, he was willing to send the future of electric vehicles to China. He said if America invests in electric vehicles, it would drive down wages; it would destroy jobs which spell the end of the American automobile industry. Well, like almost everything else he's said, he's wrong. “