On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign claimed she “does not support an electric vehicle mandate.”

The comments from the Harris campaign’s rapid response director Ammar Moussa came in response to a claim from Ohio Sen. JD Vance, former President Donald Trump’s Republican running mate, that “Harris wants to force every American to own an electric vehicle.”

“Donald Trump railed against the Inflation Reduction Act while the Biden-Harris administration oversaw the creation of tens of thousands of new, clean energy jobs in Michigan and provided ground-breaking subsidies and tax credits for electric vehicles,” Mousa wrote in a “fact check” email cited by Fox Business.

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The “fact” Harris does not support “an electric vehicle mandate” came as a surprise to many who have followed the vice president’s position on the issue in recent years.

In remarks at a Brandywine, Maryland maintenance facility in December 2021, Harris insisted “the future of transportation, in our nation and around the world, is electric.”

She said “putting more electric vehicles on our roads will make communities … healthier for our babies.”

“We need to make the shift faster and make sure it is driven by the United States,” Harris said. “That means manufacturing millions of electric cars, trucks and buses right here in our country. That means outfitting thousands of EV … repair garages, just like this one. And it means installing a national network of EV chargers.”

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The chargers, she said, “make it easier for people to go electric.”

“It’s that simple,” Harris said of the “imperative to go electric.” “It’s about being clear about what we need to get one and then do it.”

The comments serve as one of many examples of Harris’ long-standing support for an electric vehicle mandate that dates back to her career in the Senate, when she supported a 2019 Green New Deal that aimed to force the nation to 100% “clean energy” by 2040.

Harris’ EV advocacy continued during her time as VP, when she led the Clean School Bus program funneling $5 billion into efforts to deliver nearly 2,500 electric school busses to districts across the nation.

She also played a key role in the Electric Vehicle Charging Action Plan that’s designed to support the Biden-Harris goal of ensuring 50% of car sales are electric by 2030, and supports the administration’s efforts to impose new restrictive emissions standards industry leaders describe as a “gas car ban.”

Proponents of the EPA regulations have disputed that the more stringent emission threshold of 85 grams per mile equates to a ban on gas powered vehicles, but the American Petroleum Institute noted in July that “only EVs and five plug in hybrid (PHEV) meet the 82 grams/mile threshold.

“No gas, diesel or traditional hybrids come close,” according to API’s “Fast Facts” on the regulations.

“As much as the president and EPA claim to have ‘eased’ their approach, nothing could be further from the truth,” API CEO Mike Sommers and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers CEO Chet Thompson said in joint statement on the new EPA standards when they were approved in March.

“This regulation will make new gas-powered vehicles unavailable or prohibitively expensive for most Americans,” the statement read. “For them, this wildly unpopular policy is going to feel and function like a ban.”

Polling from Ipsos conducted on behalf of API in February shows 75% of Americans, including 56% of Democrats, oppose government regulations that would ban internal combustion and hybrid vehicles, while 82% support an “all-of-the-above strategy” for U.S. Energy policy.

In Michigan, 63% oppose the ban on gas vehicles, and 68% told the Remington Research Group a candidates position on stopping the government-imposed transition to EVs “is an important factor in their vote.”

Trump, meanwhile, has insisted “not everyone has to have an electric car” and vowed to “get rid of that mandate” if elected.

“Some people want gasoline-propelled cars, some people want a hybrid, and some people like an electric car,” he said, according to Business Insider.

Trump has vowed to protect the auto industry with a 100% tariff on Chinese imports many believe could upend the U.S. market, “saving the auto industry from complete obliteration … and saving customers thousands and thousands of dollars per car,” he said at the Republican National Convention.

More recently, Trump has touted support from 88% of autoworkers who agree him.

All of the above convinced Michigan Democratic pollster Bernie Porn to issue a warning to Harris two weeks ago that the all-in approach to EVs from the Biden-Harris camp could cost the VP votes in November.

“I’m suggesting she try to modify and support a slow-down. We are moving too fast,” Porn, an EPIC MRA pollster, told WJBK. “We need to deal with hybrids and not push so much.”

“This is something that even among union members, I think they are not as supportive of that notion as one would think,” he told WJBK.