President Trump turned Michigan red four years ago and is battling to prove that his victory over Hillary Clinton was more than a single-election setback for the Democratic Party.
Democratic nominee Joe Biden is giving Trump stiffer competition than Clinton and holds broader appeal than she did atop the party. The former vice president is more likable and receives higher marks on the all-important “honest and trustworthy” and “cares about people like me” metrics that voters consider when deciding whom to vote for.
Those advantages, plus Trump’s approval ratings for his handling of the coronavirus and a preexisting erosion of support in the suburbs, have combined to put Biden ahead by 4.2 percentage points in mid-September, according to the RealClearPolitics average.
In 2016, Trump won Michigan by just 10,704 votes, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to capture the Midwestern battleground since 1988. In midterm elections two years later, amid a booming economy, voters there rebuked the president over concerns about his rhetoric and temperament, delivering the governor’s mansion and two traditionally Republican House seats near Detroit to the Democrats.
Michigan is closely contested again this year. But Trump is facing certain obstacles that he was not hindered by in 2016.
For starters, Biden is paying closer attention. Four years ago, Clinton did not visit Michigan until the final weeks of the campaign, when polls showed the state breaking late for the Republican nominee. She treated Michigan as though it were part of an unbreakable blue wall that would protect her path to an Electoral College victory and effectively ceded the state to Trump, who returned over and over for his signature stadium-style rallies.
The pandemic and the recession it spawned, both of which hit Michigan hard, are taking a toll on Trump’s standing and providing Biden with an opportunity to cut into the president’s turf with key voting blocs: suburban voters, especially women, and blue collar voters that are part of his base.
But Trump also holds advantages, evident in recent polls showing a closer presidential contest and tightening race for the Senate between charismatic Republican challenger John James and Democratic incumbent Gary Peters, whose big lead has evaporated. Trump’s approval numbers on the economy remain positive and are among the few important aspects of his job on which voters tend to rate him more favorably than Biden.
And Trump’s relationship with working-class white voters and Michiganders who live in the outer suburbs and rural communities is holding strong, bolstered by a consistent record on trade that appeals to rank-and-file union members. The Trump campaign is fielding an aggressive voter turnout effort that has been entrenched in the state for more than a year, an operational advantage over Biden that Republicans are convinced will pay dividends down the road.
The former vice president had to fight through a contentious primary that did not end until the spring and then was forced to ramp up in the middle of a pandemic. Biden is trying to make up for lingering disparities on the ground by outspending Trump on television and digital platforms in Michigan, which he is able to do because he outraised the president by more than $150 million in August.
