How Biden won
Historic turnout and demographic shifts propelled Biden to victory in Michigan
Record-breaking voter turnout in reliably Democratic areas and demographic shifts in Republican parts of the state helped propel President Elect-Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris to victory in Michigan.
In Michigan, 5,566,316 voters cast a ballot in this year’s presidential election, far surpassing the record of roughly 5 million voters that turned out in November 2008. A total of 2,794,822 Michiganders cast their ballots for Biden while 2,647,832 cast their ballots for President Trump.
Nationwide, over 77 million voters cast their ballots for the president- elect while over 72 million favored Trump. 66.5% of eligible Americans are projected to have cast a ballot in this year’s election, which would be the highest rate since 1900 (73.7%).
In the Great Lakes state, political experts and strategists point to the Democratic Party’s ability to turn out the vote as the clear advantage Biden had over Trump. They also point to demographic shifts that may have allowed Biden to “poach some votes” in traditionally red counties this time around with Biden flipping Leelanau, Kent, and Saginaw counties and cutting into Trump’s margins in others, especially in northern parts of the state. Exit polls show that 6% of the state’s 2016 Trump voters cast a ballot for Biden in 2020.
Even though Trump was able to increase his vote totals in many counties statewide and hold his own in ru
ral and blue collar areas, it wasn’t enough to match what Biden was able to do, which included narrowing the margin of victory in two-thirds of the 72 counties that Trump carried and receiving more votes than Hillary Clinton did in each of those counties. Biden won 11 of the state’s 83 counties in the state’s most heavy populated and heavy Democratic-leaning areas.
In addition to winning the state’s Black vote, Biden also made in-roads among white working- class voters, once an important part of the Democratic base in the state. Trump still won this demographic decisively.
Michigan exit polls have shown that Biden and Harris won Michigan with 89% percent of the Black vote and 59% of the Latino vote in the state, with Trump winning 55% of the White vote. More than 75% of young voters of color voted for Biden in Michigan.
The Democratic vote margins and vote totals in counties like Wayne, Oakland, Ingham, Kalamazoo, and Washtenaw saw significant increases over 2016, expressing both the energized Democratic base and the possible lack of Democratic voter enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Biden won 60% of the vote in southeast Michigan, including 73% in Wayne County.
In Oakland County, Biden collected a total of 433,892 votes to Trump’s 325,916. The 108,066 margin is an increase of roughly 55,000 votes from Clinton’s 2016 margin. Biden’s vote total is an increase of 90,912 votes compared to Clinton’s. It seems Oakland County is continuing its shift towards becoming a solidly democratic county.
John Sellek, owner of Lansing- based Harbor Strategic Public Affairs and longtime Republican advisor, said one thing that stands out is that, despite a huge drive to increase Black turnout and margins, indications are that Biden did no better than Hillary Clinton, who took a lot of criticism for earning fewer Black votes than former President Barack Obama.
“In Southfield, while President-Elect Biden did win more votes than Clinton, Trump also increased his vote total, causing President-Elect Biden’s margin there to slightly shrink from Clinton’s,” he said. “This is similar to neighboring Detroit, where President-Elect Biden actually got fewer raw votes than Clinton and ended up with a smaller margin of victory than Clinton.”
In Wayne County, Biden won by 322,925 votes, an increase of over 67,000 compared to Clinton’s margin in 2016. In Detroit alone, Biden garnered about 95% of the vote
“The extra votes in Wayne County alone get Biden a long way to the result,” said David Dulio, director of the Oakland University Center for Civic Engagement. “Frankly, that says a lot more about Hillary Clinton than it does about Joe Biden. People just didn’t turn out for Hillary Clinton.”
Dulio said Democrats won the turnout game in spite of Trump getting more votes than he did 2016. He acknowledges that Trump increased his vote totals, but believes some Republican voters may have been “turned off” to Trump this time around.
“I think Oakland County is a good example of that because John James received nearly 10,000 more votes there then Donald Trump,” he said. “That tells me there are Republicans in Oakland County who didn’t like Trump, but didn’t reject Republican principles or at least those that John James was pitching them.”
Sellek seemed to agree that COVID-19 was ultimately the biggest disrupter in the presidential election, which severely limited Trump’s best reelection advantage -a strong economy.
“Polling, for what it’s worth, indicated the economy was one area voters gave the upper hand to Trump but COVID and his message strategy kept him from being able to use it effectively. The reaction by a majority of women to President Trump’s style shaved a layer of support off the top that often times returned to the Republican side further down the ballot.”
Biden also performed better than Clinton in other blue collar areas, including gaining votes in Macomb County. Although Trump won the county, he did so by receiving nearly 10,000 fewer votes than in 2016. Biden was able to win 49,244 more votes in Macomb County than Clinton did, showing how the historic turnout can drive up margins for both candidates.
Robert Yoon, a University of Michigan communications and media professor, said Michigan doesn’t look all that different in 2020 than it did in 2016. Of the 12 counties that voted for President Obama twice but then flipped to Trump in 2016, Biden only won back Saginaw County.
He added that Trump’s back-to-back victory in Macomb, as well as the fact that he was able to significantly improve upon his 2016 statewide vote total, is a clear indication that his message still resonates with a significant portion of the electorate that used to vote for Democrats.
Like Macomb County, Biden was able to cut into Trump’s margins statewide, potentially taking away some of Trump’s 2016 votes. That proved to be very critical.
For example, in Berrien, Clinton, Livingston, Eaton, Grand Traverse, Macomb, and Ottawa counties Trump won by much lower margins. He was also able to increase his margins in counties like Jackson, Monroe, Montcalm, St. Clair, and Sanilac, but it wasn’t enough to match the significant margin increases for Biden in those heavily populated, blue counties like Wayne, Oakland, Ingham, and Genesee.
“In driving his overall margin up over Clinton, President-Elect Biden mainly increased his margins in the Democratic suburbs—specifically with whites,” said Sellek. “For example, in Black-majority Southfield and Pontiac, President-Elect Biden lost about 2% and 4% respectively compared to Clinton’s 2016 margins.
Sellek said Biden also increased margins significantly in other Democratic suburbs like Royal Oak (+9.6%), Farmington Hills (+6.2%) and Birmingham (+7.5).
For many, a big boost, and maybe a bit of a surprise, for Biden came from voters in Kent County, a traditionally red- leaning electorate.
In Kent County, one of the three counties Biden flipped from 2016, Biden won by 21,435 votes. In 2016, Trump won the county by 9,497 votes, a decrease from Mitt Romney’s 2012 margin of over 23,000 votes.
Dulio said the Kent County results could be showing the “continual erosion of Republican support there.” Similar to Oakland County, Dulio said Biden saw large margin increases across the county, including Grand Rapids, Kentwood and even “wellto- do suburbs like East Grand Rapids, Ada and Cascade.”
“I think Kent County is experiencing the same kinds of demographic and educational shifts that Oakland County was maybe a decade ago or more,” he said. “That is at least driving, in part, election results.”
In northern Michigan, Trump saw many of the counties that he won in 2016 stay red, although some of his margins shrunk, including in Grand Traverse County. Biden was also able to flip Leelanau County. Exit polls show Trump won 56% of the vote in northern Michigan, including all of the upper peninsula.
In Grand Traverse County, Trump received 30,502 votes to Biden’s 28,682. That 1,820 vote margin is a decrease of 4,628 compared to 2016. In Leelanau County, Biden won by 878 votes compared to Trump’s 465-vote margin over Clinton in 2016.
“Leelanau County, Grand Traverse County, and other communities up north: These communities have made Michigan a microcosm of the United States,” said Dulio. “You’ve got the more highly educated and aff luent areas trending Democratic.”
Yoon added that Biden was also able to “pad his statewide vote total” by eating into Trump’s margin in Republican areas, many of them in northern parts of the state.
“Biden narrowed the margin of victory in twothirds of the 72 counties that Trump carried and received more votes than Hillary Clinton did in every single one,” he said. “Although he still lost most of these counties by wide margins, poaching a few thousand votes here and there really added up.”
Although Trump held many of the state’s rural counties, especially in northern Michigan, the election results in some of those areas reveal many of the same demographic shifts (significantly higher median income levels and rates of college degrees) as is seen in some suburban counties where Biden collected the bulk of his votes.
“Lake Michigan shore counties became bluer, while those to the east remained more firmly in Trump country,” said Sellek. “Counties like Emmet, Charlevoix, Grand Traverse moved toward the Democrats at the presidential level, with Leelanau completely flipping to Biden.”
The 83 county boards of canvassers are required to certify their election results by Nov. 17 before sending them off to the Secretary of State’s Office. The State Board of Canvassers must certify the state’s election results by Nov. 23.