Washington Wednesday: The Michigan strategy

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 9th of October.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Time now for Washington Wednesday.

Today, another brick in the blue wall, the state of Michigan.

Voters surprised Democrats by voting red in 2016 and sending Donald Trump to the White House. But Democrats took Michigan back in 2020.

LINDSAY MAST: This time around, the presidential race is essentially a toss-up, if you believe the polls.

With both the White House and the U.S. Senate up for grabs, what about the political ground game in Michigan?

Washington Bureau reporter Carolina Lumetta has the story.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: In a presidential election year, the blue wall is defined as a group of states that lean Democratic and can pack a punch in the Electoral College to help spur the Democratic candidate to victory. It includes Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. But Michigan could be the weak link for the party again this year.

MATT GROSSMANN: So Michigan's been near the middle microcosm of the national electorate for some time.

Matt Grossman is the director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University. He says that the Hillary Clinton campaign of 2016 suffered from assuming Michigan was a safe member of the blue wall states.

GROSSMANN: Hillary then ran just the same national ads about things that Donald Trump said that were offensive, rather than running a Michigan specific campaign.

Trump won the state, but by fewer than 11,000 votes.

GROSSMAN: So since then, in 2020 and 2024 Democrats have tried to recreate what they did in 2012: focused a lot on the auto industry, on unions, on Michigan-specific messaging. That doesn't mean it will work, but they have certainly been focused there.

Even though Harris polls better than Biden statewide, she could be in trouble with unions and blue collar workers. In a rare move, both the Teamsters union and the International Association of Fire Fighters declined to endorse either candidate this year. They typically back the Democratic ticket. In Michigan, union members account for roughly 13 percent of all workers in the state. Here’s Vice President Harris at a rally in the town of Flint last week:

HARRIS: I will always put the middle class and working families first. I come from the middle class and I will never forget where I come.

Many union members still flock to Harris rallies, but internal Teamsters polling found that nearly 60 percent of rank-and-file members back Trump. The former president campaigned on auto industry jobs and immigration in the town of Saginaw last week.

TRUMP: As we bring back our jobs we will also restore America's borders. With four more years for Kamala, she will flood every Michigan small town and Midwestern City with illegal migrants from the most dangerous places on Earth and Michigan will not be Michigan any longer.

Political scientist Grossman says that, like the Democrats, Trump has also shifted his Michigan message, but he still keeps a national focus. And similar to 2016 and 2020, he runs a populist message that appeals to blue collar voters.

GROSSMAN: The messaging has been pretty national, it's been you know about inflation, even immigration along the southern border even though we're along the northern border So you can kind of tell that they are running similar ads here to elsewhere. But, you know, has spent a lot of time here, has sent a lot of people here. Hasn't spent quite as much as the Harris campaign, but appears to be competing in Michigan until the very end.

Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance has visited more than seven times since July, and campaign representatives routinely show up to local Republican meetings and events. Here’s west-Michigan based Republican consultant Don Goris.

DON GORIS: So it's kind of just like a revolving door of the candidates being here. There's a very strong thread of conservatism in this region, but not as much partisanship where a large portion of the people here were maybe kind of skeptical of Trump for a long time. It feels like those attitudes have really, really changed in the last few months.

Trump is also hoping to make inroads with black male voters—another historically Democratic stronghold. Repeat appearances in Detroit have focused primarily on public safety and the economy where the former president compares his record to Biden’s. At Harris’ Flint rally, NBA star Magic Johnson called attention to this strategy:

JOHNSON: Kamala's opponent promised a lot of things last time to the black community that he did not deliver on. So, that's why I'm here, to make sure I help black men understand first get out and vote, and then vote for the next president of the United States, Kamala Harris.

Another critical voting bloc is Arab Americans. One in six primary voters selected “uncommitted” on their primary ballots in February to protest President Biden’s support for Israel. Lexis Zeidan, a Michigan Palestinian activist, says her state could decide the election.

LEXIS ZEIDAN: They say the path to the White House is through Michigan. And, you know, Arab American voters in Michigan can sway the election.

With Vice President Kamala Harris now at the top of the ticket, Democrats hope they can win over the Arab Americans in the state. But Grossman says past elections show that may be difficult.

GROSSMAN: For example in 2022, the Dearborn area actually moved towards the Republicans while the rest of the state was moving towards the Democrats. And it had nothing to do with Gaza. It was about LGBT books in schools and pandemic culture war politics, where it was just a socially conservative audience that did not agree with the Democratic direction.

That does not mean these voters will automatically switch to Republican…but with widespread protest over the governing party’s support for Israel, Harris cannot rely on the region to support her.

GROSSMAN: I think we are going to see some democratic losses among the Arab American population in Michigan.

While Harris has not directly addressed Middle East issues from the campaign stage, she has been meeting privately with Muslim organizers at her rallies…though many have stopped short of an endorsement.

Another warning flag: In a typical year, Senate races mirror the presidential when both are on the ballot. But so far the opposite is true in Michigan. Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin is in a narrow race to fill an open Senate seat. But Harris lags her in the latest polls.

Aside from candidates, voting methods are top of mind for Michigan voters this year. After 2020, the state litigated more than 250 audits and several more lawsuits over voting machines. None of the audits found fraud at a scale to change the outcome. Democrats promised to reduce so-called frivolous lawsuits in the future…and they put it on the ballot in 2022.

ABC 7 DETROIT: Voters are also approving Proposal 2, a constitutional amendment expanding voting rights here in Michigan. 59% giving it the green light 41% saying no.

Proposal 2 allowed the state’s majority Democrat legislature to pass several bills changing the state’s election process, over widespread Republican protest. That includes new policies that loosen rules for photo identification, restrict fraud investigations to law enforcement, and give the governor sole approval of the list of electors to send to Washington.

In another change from 2020, the GOP is largely embracing mail-in voting this year. Michigan Republicans are working with the RNC to urge early voting as a way to “bank” a vote.

TRUMP: Early mail-in voting is underway now in Michigan so if you want go out and get that ballot, return it as soon as possible. And if not get a ballot just go and vote. you got to vote. We’ve got to win this election.

With so many factors at play in Michigan this year, GOP consultant Goris says it’s possible Michigan could flip yet again.

GORIS: Looking at Metro Detroit as a whole, obviously a very large African-American population, a large Arab-American population, a very large labor vote, it makes a lot of sense that President Trump would be spending a lot of time there and competing for that region. I mean, do I think that he's going to win Wayne County? Probably not, but it's a huge county and even increasing the baseline by a few percentage points, that could be the difference between the entire state.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta.

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