Michigan looks key to White House race
DETROIT – From 1992 through 2012, Michigan voters only backed Democratic presidential nominees and national campaigns noticed.
Then in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was criticized for not campaigning in the state as the Democratic nominee more frequently and ceding it – albeit narrowly – to Republican Donald Trump.
Neither party is taking Michigan for granted now with President Joe Biden, a Democrat, seeking reelection against his predecessor.
With six months until the Nov. 5 election, campaign visits and ads in the state have been picking up. Usually, it would be fall before the state would be showered with so much personal attention. But it’s not unusual given that it’s increasingly looking like Michigan may – and this is not an exaggeration – decide the election.
“I don’t know if there is a shade of purple deeper than Michigan is,” said Jamaine Dickens, a political consultant. “If I’m Trump, I’m thinking, I’ve won Michigan before and I can win Michigan again. As for Biden, the community is really polarized over the (Israel-Hamas) conflict. ... Anything’s possible.”
Last week, in the Atlantic magazine, political analyst Ron Brownstein wrote about the election, focusing particular attention on Michigan, noting that Biden has struggled in polls despite it typically being considered the most-Democratic-leaning of the so-called Rust Belt swing states that include Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Brownstein said Biden – who beat Trump in Michigan by about 154,000 votes, or just under 3 percentage points in 2020 – has been “whipsawed by defections among multiple groups Democrats rely on, including Arab Americans, autoworkers, young people and Black Americans.”
Biden’s campaign has poured resources and personnel into the state for voter outreach and blunting Trump’s messages through copious ads from his own campaign fund. While the Trump campaign is said to have recently begun creating such infrastructure in Michigan, it hasn’t been nearly as active.
“You can’t win without Michigan,” said Michiganbased Democratic political consultant Jill Alper. “So, visit early, visit often.”
Four years ago, Biden won – there is no credible evidence that he did not, no matter what Trump and his allies claim – a host of swing states, a group that for this story we’ll limit to Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. That, plus all the other state outcomes, gave Biden an Electoral College victory over Trump of 306-232. A president needs 270 Electoral College votes to win.
This year, Arizona and Georgia, traditionally far more Republican-leaning states, appear as if they could be more difficult targets for Biden to capture again. Nevada, too, has appeared to be swinging more strongly toward Trump. Democratic hopes of flipping North Carolina and Florida, while possible, are long shots in an environment where Biden is still suffering from poor favorability ratings.
If Arizona, Georgia and Nevada go red, that gives Trump an Electoral College margin of 268 to 226, all else staying as it did in 2020 and not yet factoring in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But that means Biden has to run the table in those states to get to exactly 270. Trump only has to win one of them.
And Michigan has, for months, looked like the one that might be most likely to flip.
Looking at the polls monitored by the RealClearPolitics website, it shows Trump barely ahead, almost tied with Biden in the state. But the vast majority of polls taken in the state have shown Trump, not Biden, ahead. And those larger margins seen early this year and late last year in Michigan were not replicated in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania to any great extent.
And Biden has struggled to maintain traditionally strong Democratic margins among young voters and Black people. Among the latter, a recent Fox News poll showed Biden with support of 75% of that voting bloc – a far cry from the 92% support exit polls showed he received from Black voters in Michigan in 2020.
Biden also has to contend with widespread discontent among Michigan’s large Arab American and Muslim communities over his administration’s continued support for Israel and refusal to demand a cease-fire to the violence in Gaza. Biden has sent campaign and staff to Michigan to talk with leaders, but it doesn’t appear to have assuaged their concerns.
Meanwhile, Trump is trying to foment displeasure with Biden on immigration, arguing without evidence that the record numbers of undocumented immigrants entering the country has led to rampant crime. He also is trying to advance claims that Biden has ruined the economy despite stock market gains and substantial job and wage growth.
Trump also is advancing cultural grievances, promising to cut funding for schools that teach certain theories on race relations and history, and vowing to overturn Biden administration protections for transgender students.
Biden is likely to increasingly lean on the argument that got him elected in 2020 – Trump’s divisiveness, his norm-breaking and bluster, as well as his bellicose behavior toward U.S. allies and immigrants.
Then, there is the Biden administration’s push to encourage – if not require – automakers to sell many more electric vehicles in the future.
While Detroit’s automakers and the UAW have largely embraced the plans, there are deep concerns about what it will mean for employment.
Trump rails that the change means the industry will be decimated, and that the cars will come from China; Biden argues it will transform and grow the American auto industry.
“The issue set in this election is set up perfectly for Trump. His message is right in line with where the voters are in this state,” said Jamie Roe, a Republican political consultant in Michigan who is working with former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers in his race for an open U.S. Senate seat in the state.
There does appear to be one change from four years ago for Trump: Rather than telling voters to avoid absentee or mail-in ballots as being inherently prone to fraud, he’s telling supporters to vote however they need to in order to pump up his margins.
Contributing: Clara Hendrickson, Detroit Free Press